Méchoui

Lamb rubbed with spiced butter and cooked for five hours until it is pulled apart by hand and dipped in cumin salt.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

For the lamb

• 3 kg lamb shoulder, on the bone
• 150 g soft butter
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• a pinch of saffron
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

To serve

• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons coarse salt
• flatbread

Method

1. BUTTER, NOT OIL, AND IT IS PUSHED UNDER THE SKIN AS WELL AS OVER IT. The spiced butter melts into the meat over five hours and bastes it from the inside; oil runs off within the first hour and the surface dries. Work it into every fold and crevice with the fingers and force some between the fat and the flesh.
2. IT IS COVERED FOR MOST OF THE TIME AND UNCOVERED AT THE END. Four hours sealed under foil is effectively steaming -- it is how the meat gets to falling apart -- and the last hour open is what browns it. Done uncovered throughout, the outside is excellent and the inside is tough.
3. AND IT IS NOT CARVED. It is pulled apart with the fingers at the table and each piece dipped in a bowl of cumin and coarse salt. A carved méchoui is a roast shoulder.
4. Saffron steeped in a spoonful of warm water.
5. Butter beaten with the garlic, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, saffron and oil to a smooth paste.
6. Deep slashes cut into the thickest parts of the shoulder, down to the bone.
7. The butter worked into every slash, over the whole surface, and pushed under the skin wherever it lifts.
8. Left at room temperature 1 hour, or overnight in the fridge and brought back out.
9. Into a deep roasting tin with 200 ml of water in the bottom -- not touching the meat, which sits on a rack.
10. COVERED TIGHTLY WITH FOIL and roasted at 150C for 4 hours.
11. The foil removed, the heat raised to 200C, and roasted a further 45 minutes to 1 hour, basting with the pan juices every 15 minutes, until the outside is dark and crisp.
12. Rested 20 minutes.
13. The cumin and coarse salt mixed in a bowl and put on the table. The lamb pulled apart by hand, and each piece dipped as it is eaten, with bread.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Morocco · All recipes