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Friday, January 15, 2016

Lamb Ouzi with Rice, Almonds and Peas



A traditional Syrian Meal full of flavour and deeply aromatic was prepared using lamb.  This was the first meal the Syrian couple we had hosted during the Christmas holidays prepared for our family.


This proved to be an interesting journey through the world of spices and transcribing the recipe for me!  The couple had brought a bag of spices that the wife used all the time in her home.  With the help of google search and google translate, we were able to find most of the spices in my kitchen.  

Kabsa, Kabseh is a mix of both pungent and floral spices such as black pepper, bay leaves, gingersaffroncayenne, black lime, cardamom and cloves
Curcuma is Turmeric and a Indo European Hot Curry Mix that I had added even more flavor to the rice. 

The adding of spices was not measured, but done to taste.


The Natural almonds were blanched to remove the skins.  This has been a long since I'll seen this done as now one can buy skinned almonds, but at an increased price.


The blanched almonds were dried and fried in canola oil until golden



The lamb was cooked in a pressure cooker. When cool to handle the lamb was cute into bite size pieces.   


Butter was melted and the pieces of lamb were fried in the melted butter





The next step was to cook the rice stove top with aromatic spices;cardamon pods, curry, turmeric, cinnamon, bay leaves, salt and black pepper along with juices from cooking the lamb. 

The lamb dish was beautifully served Family Style, the rice was topped with the lamb and garnished with the sautéed golden almonds and peas. 






This Syrian meal was not only colorful but flavorful and fresh!


This beautiful meal was prepared by a young Syrian couple to mark one week in Canada . What an accomplishment to be able to pull this meal off using two unfamiliar Canadian kitchens!

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