Six-Hour Lamb with Za'atar and Anchovy

by Ella Risbridger, featured in The Kitchen Book

Published by Fourth Estate

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Introduction

We tend to think of lamb as a spring thing — Easter, etc. — possibly because that is when the lambs are hopping and leaping about. It is obvious with even a tiny bit of thought that this makes no sense: the lambs, in spring, are very small. They are hopping and leaping about. They are not the large hefty boys one needs for a leg of lamb. The leg of an actual little lamb is very small, and probably not nearly as nice to eat.

Also, while it is possible to feel bad about eating little-lamb-qua-little-lamb because of the small hopping and leaping of it all, I have no real feelings about eating a big hefty autumn boy. This is because when I was a child we had a lot of these autumn boys and they were extremely violent: large mean lads who guarded the garden gate with all the indiscriminate vigour of a drunk bouncer. They were also then, as they are now, extremely delicious.

They are especially delicious when you cook them like this: lots of spices, lots of garlic, and anchovies for classic flavour, blitzed into a paste and rubbed into the whole leg, cooked slowly in stock and onions until the whole thing falls apart. It's based sort of faintly on what I think might have been a recipe by a Palestinian chef in a Sunday supplement about a decade ago: the allspice-fenugreek-cardamom combo feels quite Palestinian, no? Then I put anchovy in it, for classic lamb reasons, and also all that garlic, for deliciousness reasons. Serve it with a big herby salad to remind you that summer was here once; and salted yoghurt with olive oil rippled through it; and flatbreads, to make a kind of ineffably elegant kebab-adjacent treat. It's platters; it's everyone helping themselves; it's cosy without being heavy; it's comforting without being boring; it's familiar enough to be your friend while being unexpected enough to charm. I love this. I really, really love this.

As featured in

The Kitchen Book

Image of Ella Risbridger's Six Hour Lamb — Photo by Yuki Sugiura

Ingredients

Serves: 8 with leftovers

4 big red onions
1 x 2 kilograms leg of lamb
3 tablespoons cumin seeds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons allspice berries
2 tablespoons cardamom seeds
2 tablespoons fenugreek seeds
2 tablespoons za'atar
1 bulb of garlic (cloves peeled)
4 anchovies
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
500 millilitres lamb stock
50 grams fresh coriander
50 grams fresh mint
50 grams flatleaf parsley
125 grams rocket
juice of 1 lemon
pinch of sumac (optional)
400 grams Greek yoghurt
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
flatbread to serve (optional)
1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses or honey
extra virgin olive oil (applied liberally throughout)

Method

Six-Hour Lamb with Za'atar and Anchovy is a guest recipe by Ella Risbridger so we are not able to answer questions regarding this recipe

Oven on to 150°C.
First thing: four big red onions, sliced thin in half-moons and laid out on a big, deep baking tray to make a bed for the lamb. Drizzle with plenty of olive oil and a big pinch of sea salt.
The baking tray will contain liquid so it needs sides. Take your lamb from the fridge and the packaging; set it in the big roasting dish on top of the onions, and score the top of the meat through the fat.
Blitz or bash together the marinade — everything from cumin down to vinegar. If you're using a pestle and mortar, you will want to bash the seeds up first; then bash in the garlic and anchovies, then fold in the za'atar, and slowly add in 4 tablespoons of oil and the vinegar so that it makes a paste and you're not just splashing around. If using the Magimix or Magimix contender: just chuck it all in and blitz until you make a rough paste.
(Don't be tempted to add anything sweet here, like honey or pomegranate molasses: we will drizzle those over at the end and if you add it now it will burn.)
Rub this paste lavishly into the meat. Get it into all the little cuts and bits. Tip the stock directly into the tray, on top of the onions. Sprinkle the whole with a big pinch of sea salt, wrap in foil, stick it in the oven and walk away for 6 hours.
Actually, no: check it at the 3 hour mark to see if it needs more liquid. If so, feel free to tip in some boiling water. (Just a bit.)
Your jobs are: wash and pick the leaves from your huge bunch of coriander, your huge bunch of mint, and your huge bunch of parsley. Mix with a bag of rocket. This is a herb salad and it is perfect. Squeeze over some lemon; toss in a pinch of sumac if you have it and can be bothered. Find a nice bowl, arrange, and you're done with the salad.
Your other job is to put some thick Greek yoghurt artfully on a plate or platter, and drizzle with olive oil. If you would like to be fancy you can sprinkle some cumin seeds over the top.
At the 5½ mark, remove the foil, and turn the heat up to 200°C. This is how we get the crispy and delicious edges.
Warm through some flatbreads, or whatever.
At the 6 hour mark, take out the meat, and it will literally...fall apart. It will fall apart and you can shred with two forks, and stir the meat through the caramelised sticky onions beneath. Drizzle with pomegranate molasses.
This is it! This is all!
Set your yoghurt platter, your herb salad, maybe a few pink pickles and your stack of warm breads out on the table. Serve the lamb in the roasting dish with two forks for taking generous handfuls. Assemble plates; feast; feel so, so lucky you don't know what to do with yourself.

Additional Information

NOTES AND QUERIES

How to score lamb: 'scoring it' here means shallow cuts in a diamond pattern, so, first diagonal one way, then diagonal the other. This is to let the spice rub get into the meat. To me, the first time, this felt bizarrely intimidating, but it is easier than you think and you will be fine. It is also very worth doing.

Chicken stock will do in a pinch. Don't be making lamb stock from scratch.

You will have leftovers here, almost certainly, and you will want them. Fantastic sandwiches. Fantastic pie. (Rake through some chopped spinach, crumble over some feta, brush some filo with olive oil and scrunch it up on top. Sesame seeds. Black pepper. Bake 15-ish minutes at 180°C, or until lamb is piping hot and pastry crisp and delicious.)