I have recently been given the Pitt Cue cookbook, which is a genius guide to BBQing and has caused much excitement in our household, to the point of us taking the book on holiday with us next week to try all the recipes. As you will have seen from this blog, we love a good hunk of meat!
The Berbers claim to be the first to have worked out how to cook a whole lamb, bbqed on a spit, basted in herb butter and cooked till its so tender it can be eaten with fingers. One of our cookbooks provided a variant of this with goat but cooked in a Romertopf clay oven – a clay oven satured with water so that as it heats up, the steam is released to keep the food moist and once the steam has evaporated it turns into a dry roaster.
Now practically this is not possible unless you happen to have one of these in your back garden, but you can slow cook the lamb (or goat if you prefer) in a roasting tin as detailed below.
We served this with a smoky aubergine (see the next recipe posted) and a bulgar wheat salad. As we had friend over for lunch, we forgot to take a photo of the finished product but there is one below of it marinating overnight and trust me when I say it was deliciously golden brown and crispy on the outside witg glorious juicy tender meat on the inside and oodles of juice that we turned into a delicious gravy. It was tender enough for our toothless but still teething 8 month old to eat!
Mechoui (Serves 4)
Needs overnight marinating
Lamb Shoulder – 1.6-1.8kg
4 crushed garlic cloves with 1 tbsp of sea salt added to make it a paste
2 tsp ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin seeds
1 tsp sweet paprika
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 juiced lemon
30g unsalted and softened butter
The day before
– Score the meat.
– Mix together the spices, garlic, honey, lemon juice, oil and butter & rub all over the meat. Seal in a plastic bag and leave in the fridge overnight.
The next day
– Place the meat in a baking tray. Cover tightly with foil and and cook for 4 hours at 130C after which remove the foil, turn heat up to 200C and cook for a further 30 minutes.
-Remove, place on a serving tray, using the juices for a gravy and serve with small dishes of sea salt and ground cumin for sprinking.
Gastronomic Delights 