Sunday Supper 12: Moroccan Lamb Stew

Recipe: Easy Moroccan Lamb Stew by Suzy Karadsheh at The Mediterranean Dish

After tackling Scotch Eggs for virtual Easter brunch and chatting with friends in an online space, I spent the rest of Easter Sunday working my tail off on a very special, indulgent and appropriately "extra" Easter supper. For the first time since February 29, 2020, I was making and serving dinner for a real, live (fully vaccinated, like me) dinner guest in my own home. That was reason enough to push myself a bit and try some new things, but coupled with the fact that this particular dinner guest means the world to me and is an excellent cook himself meant it was time for me to show up and show out.

Sticking with the Easter theme, I turned to lamb. Like a lot of families, our major holiday traditions growing up were defined by their accompanying meals, and those meals defined by their star proteins. Turkey for Thanksgiving is a classic, and ham was always on the Christmas table. For Easter, we usually had a nice ham as well, with the obligatory potatoes and macaroni. Being small-town midwesterners in the 90s we didn't think about lamb much as a dinner meat. Or at least I didn't. When you're in the land of cows and pigs and corn, those are the things that tend to end up on your table. As we grew and got older, and my dad started experimenting with making curries, lamb became an indulgence we would track down on rare occasions.

Though it is an ancient practice to eat lamb at Easter (pre-dating Easter, in fact, as a Passover tradition), the two never became firmly connected in our family. Maybe once or twice, but never something we just "had to have" at Easter. Lamb is on the pricier side of proteins, and can be difficult to find in some markets (it took me four different grocery stores to find decent lamb) - which makes it feel a little extra fancy. Something you reserve for those you love.

And, of course, when you think of lamb for Easter, or other fancy meals, you might naturally think of fancier cuts like rack of lamb, or standing rib roasts, or bone-in chops. That's where you're going to lay out the real fancy-people money. This isn't that. Being something I don't cook often, I wasn't quite ready to put the meal on the line with a headliner piece of meat like that. There's no room to hide when you've got a meal like that. An overcooked chop or an undercooked rack of lamb will tell on you without a second thought.

I wanted something homey, something more comforting and soul-satisfying. And, while I was trying to show off a little bit, this was going to be a comfortable, low-key Easter supper. A quiet night in with someone I love. Letting the menu match the mood, I felt like a rich, spicy, complex and layered stew was the way to go. Save the fancy standing rib roasts for times ahead when full-scale dinner parties are possible again.

The result was just about perfect. The overall flavor notes on this stew are warm, and earthy. You could me forgiven for thinking this dish was cooked over an open flame outdoors, or imagining eating it by a crackling fire. I did. It's not really at all spicy, but even I didn't miss that. The sweetness from carrots and cooked onions gives just the right lightness in the background and the tomatoes (broken down in a long cook in the oven) coat everything in a sort of richness. The spices are perfectly balanced so nothing is overwhelming or outsinging the others. I loved the thickness of this stew - it felt truly substantial and filling - but you could easily thin it down with a bit more beef stock.

Honestly, this is a dish that wakes up your palate because your tastebuds all have so much to react to. The complexity makes your mouth buzz and your belly happy.

PREPARATION

The recipe called for boneless leg of lamb, but I struck out at store after store on that front, so on the fourth try, I settled for some lamb shoulder round chops. If you go this route, buy a bit more than the called-for 2.5 lbs (to account for bone weight) and carefully cut the meat off the bones, trim off fatty sections and cut into cubes.

The other difficult-to-find item here, for me, was the spice mix, Ras el Hanout. Ras el Hanout is a classic Moroccan spice mix, used almost as ubiquitously as Garam Masala in Indian and Southwest Asian cooking. The spice mix is widely variable from vendor to vendor, stemming from its history of being made by individual spice merchants and shop owners. You probably already have many of the key ingredients, but I recommend tracking down a pre-mixed ras el hanout to get all the subtle and minor flavor notes of things you may not have on hand. I found mine at a local Middle Eastern Bakery, but you can also readily find it at spice shops online.

When you're browning your meat, work in batches. If you over crowd your Dutch oven, your meat will steam and boil more than sear and brown. Not a good look. I'd suggest two or three batches, and just give yourself plenty of time in this step to make sure the meat all gets nice and brown and crusty and delicious.

Once that's done and you return the veggies and meat to the pot, get ready for magic. When you throw in that gorgeous spice mix, cinnamon stick and apricots, and they start to heat up, the room is going to come alive. All sorts of spicy, and warm, and sweet, and complex scents are going to fill your nose and transport you to some warm seaside. Tip in the tomatoes (I cut mine into a large dice) and get that sucker in the oven. It's not ready to eat yet.

I was serving this lamb up with some of my favorite, ridiculously easy and impossibly delicious Focaccia, baked fresh right at dinner time. So I had an oven issue. I did the first 90 minutes in the oven as directed, then added the chickpeas and returned it all to the oven for 10-15 minutes. When it was time to kick the oven up to high for the focaccia, I moved the stew to the stovetop over a low flame to finish cooking the chickpeas and simmer until dinner was served. This chickpea checkpoint is also a good time to add more beef stock or water if you like your stew a bit thinner.

SERVING

I served this up with a rosemary-garlic focaccia for a simple sort of meat-potatoes-bread supper. A bright cucumber/tomato/lemon juice salad would also be a great textural and temperature contract to go with this meal. (It was a great addition as I ate leftovers last week).

Speaking of which ... get ready for leftovers. If you're lucky enough to have some of this left to put away for another day, you're in for a treat. Like all soups and stews this dish improves with time. The flavors get more and more pronounced as the meddle, and when you rewarm some of this on the stove you'll realize it's lost absolutely nothing.

Dessert was a fresh berry pavlova, but that's a post for another time.

Rating: 4.9/5

Will I Make It Again?: Def.