it rained yesterday and our house was a little cold so i wanted to slow cook something all day long to make the house smell great and to get an extra heater going. i decided on lamb because i had some pears that needed to be eaten, leftover thyme and onions. heres what i did...
i had the butcher put a basic meat rub on the lamb when i bought it at whole foods and i bought a tub of thick lebaneese yoghurt. i soaked the bottom of my clay pot and into a bowl i chopped 3 small pears, 1 onion, 1 bulb of garlic cut in halves, 2 tsp thyme, 1 tbs orange zest, 1 tsp minced ginger, and 8 quartered new potatoes. i added them to the clay pot and poured 4 tsb of olive oil and mixed with my hands. i then put some rocky mineral rich sea salt, a few peppercorns, a little mustard seed and a little nutmeg in a mortar and pestle and grinded a rub and put it on the lamb and sprinkled the remainder over the aromatics in the clay pot. i placed the lamb on top, covered and baked at 300 for 2 hours.
when i pulled it out there was a ton of sweet lamb-y juice because the pears had melted and the lamb had reduced by half. i took the meat and potatoes out and strained the broth out into a saucier and added a boullion cube and a cup of red wine. as that reduced, i melted 3 tsb of butter in another saucier and made a roux by whisking in an equal part of flour. i then added that mixture into the sauce after it had reduced by a little less than half.
i sliced the lamb, plated it with the potato succatash and sauced it up.
right before serving i chopped some garlic and added it to the yogurt with some lemon juice and finely diced cucumber to complete the raita.
the best bites had a little of everything in it, including the cool raita.
dinner like this can pay back some favors. in fact, think lamb has been a form of currency for most of the world for thousands of years.
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