Recipes: Roast lamb with apricots, pistachios, mint and pearl barley
This lovely recipe comes from Rukmini Iyer’s The Roasting Tin: Simple One Dish Dinners (Penguin House, 2017), a cookbook I can’t recommend enough. She recommends using a baking tray/casserole dish, pyrex dish (anything really) approx 30×40 or at least big enough to place all the vegetables spread out on the bottom.
The barley sucks up all the lovely flavours, and can be substituted for chickpeas or, at a pinch, lentils if desired. It enjoys being warmed up for finishing off the next day!
Ingredients
- 4 lamb rump steaks (400-500g)
- Olive oil
- 2 teaspoons of raw el hangout (can be bought as a powder from all good supermarkets)
- 1Juice of 1/2 a lemon
- 4 cloves of crushed garlic
- 250g dried apricots
- 2 red onions thinly sliced
- 150g pearl barley
- 350ml chicken stock
- 30g pistachios, chopped
- Handful of fresh mint
- Salt and pepper
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Preheat the oven at 150 fan/170c/gas mark 3. Rub the lamb steaks with the olive oil, raw el hangout, a teaspoon of salt and half the garlic and set aside.
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In a roasting tin, mix together the dried apricots, onions, remaining garlic, barley and chicken stock. Place the spiced lamb on top, cover the dish tightly with foil then place in oven for one hour.
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Mix together the pistachios and mint. Once cooked , taste the barley and season as desired with salt, pepper and the lemon juice.
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Scatter the pistachios and mint over the lamb and serve.
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Perhaps serve with green salad, tabboleh – or however you fancy!
