Rack of lamb with smoked aubergine puree and harissa

I think I have finally worked out why it has become fashionable in recent years for restaurant menus to simply list key ingredients rather than call their dishes something.

Rack of lamb with smoked aubergine puree, caramelised spring onion, crumbled feta, kalamata olives, harissa and a sprinkling of pistachios.

That's how a '90s menu would probably have described this dish. It’s a bit of a mouthful isn’t it? But choose a few key ingredients and list them like this and you have something much more appealing:

Rack of lamb | Smoked aubergine | Harissa | Pistachio

Same dish, different sales pitch. Which would you order?

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Hummus with spiced lamb and pine nuts

The new series I am writing for Borough Market, Box Clever, is encouraging me to be much more adventurous with my packed lunches and how I pack them. Don’t you just love these Indian tiffin tins? I bought them for pretty pictures, but I find I am using them all the time.

I first tried this dish in a little family-run Lebanese restaurant called Emma’s on Liberty in Enmore, Sydney. They called it “traditional houmous” but it was so much better than any hummus I’d tried before. It did make me wonder why I’d been eating the unadorned version my whole life. Never again.

The dish is more often called hummus kawarma or hummus b’lahmeh, both of which mean hummus with lamb, but I am sure there are many other names to match the myriad recipes. There are almost as many versions of this dish throughout the Middle East as there are recipes for hummus. Chopped lamb or minced? Pine nuts or pomegranate seeds? Chunky or smooth? Tahini? Herbs? Spices? It depends who you ask.

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Lamb shakshuka with chargrilled aubergine and garlic yoghurt

Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi

In my last post, I shared Dr Shakshuka’s traditional Israeli shakshuka, which he demonstrates to Ottolenghi in the last episode of Ottolenghi’s Mediterranean Feasts. In this programme, Ottolenghi also makes his own version of shakshuka with beef and smoked aubergine.

“I have a feeling that what I am doing is slightly sacrilegious” says Ottolenghi.

You can see from his amused expression that Dr Shakshuka agrees.

“If you want to call it a shakshuka, then it’s a shakshuka” he says.

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Spicy lamb burgers with halloumi, tzatziki and harissa

I am particular about a lot of things, but I am particularly particular about burgers. I grew up in the land of Oz, where a ‘true blue’ burger is cow or nothing and comes with lettuce, tomato, onion (fried, not raw) and beetroot. Yes, beetroot. Some add egg, bacon and pineapple and call it The Works, but I find it doesn’t – you can’t pick it up for a start. But you can get messy - I add tomato sauce and mayonnaise and lots of it. Oh, and guerkins too.

A good burger should be big and sloppy and dribble down your arms. It should require a lot of napkins, a lot more than you ever get given. It should be impossible to put down once picked up for you’ll never be able to pick it up again in one piece. And it should not be eaten on a first date.

When I eat burgers out in London I am inevitably disappointed. I know beets are unlikely, but most of the time your lucky to even get a slice of tomato. So I make them at home and until recently I have never deviated from the above, but…

There is a new kid on my block. And it is making an impression.

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Middle Eastern mezze no.3: Hugh Foster's spicy lamb mince

 

Hugh Foster is often credited with having introduced Sydneysiders to Morrocan and Middle Eastern food in the 1990s with his trendy Darlinghurst restaurant, the Fez. The Fez is now closed, but he continues the theme with Café Mint in Surry Hills which has been open since the early noughties and still draws a large crowd, a testament to his ability to keep up with the times.

Café Mint’s takes the successful Sydney café model – communal tables, sleek furnishings and interior, good coffee, all day breakfasts which merge into lunch and dinner – but adds a twist, North African cuisine. Alongside the usual breakfast offerings of sourdough toast, bircher muesli, and scrambled eggs, you have breakfast cous cous with yoghurt, merguez sausage with chakchouka, and baked eggs with beans and sucuk.

My Dad did a stint working at Café Mint after he closed his own restaurant. It was probably around this time that Middle Eastern mezze became a regular part of our weeknight dinner menu. One of my favourite of these recipes is Hugh’s spicy lamb mince with pine nuts, which has made appearances on Cafe Mint’s breakfast, lunch and dinner menu over the years.

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