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, ginger, saffron, cayenne, 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!

Spicy Lamb Burger

After two weeks of temperatures in the 30th, we are into cooler weather which I love as do our two dogs!

One of the recipes I have tried is a combination of recipes for Arayes. I had found fresh ground lamb in my supermarket and was anxious to try this. I have been doing a burger using minced lamb, feta cheese and fresh mint.  The mint that I had brought from my garden in Regina has grown as vigorously here in Calgary.   I seem to find all the recipes for fresh mint in the winter, so I am determined to use the fresh mint from my garden this year during the summer. Lamb and mint go perfectly together! 

Ground lamb 

Ingredients

• one package of Ground lamb 
• I finely chopped tomatoe 
• 1grated carrot
• 1/2 finely chopped onion
• 1 egg
• Salt and Pepper
• Chopped mint, the more the better
• 1 tsp Garam Masala, see below

Garam Masala
This recipe is a guideline from Epicurious.com. According to my friend in Winnipeg, every Indian cook has her own blend and fresh spices for blending are a must as are one's personal taste!  

• • 2 bay leaves
  • 1-inch piece cinnamon stick, broken into pieces
  • /4 cup cumin seeds
  • 1/3 cup coriander seeds
  • 1 tablespoon green cardamom pods
  • 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
  • 2 teaspoons whole cloves
  • 1 dried red chile
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

  

  Grated carrots and Fresh Mint added taste and color

  
  The instruction for Arayes, Lebanese stuffed Pita is to use this mixture of ground meat by  spread it very thinly inside an opened pita bread.  This stuffed pita can be  grilled, baked or fried!   However I could not open the purchased Pita Bread without tearing it, so I shaped kebabs from the ground meat mixture to grill!
  
  

  

  Meatball Kebabs

  
  

  The pita bread was still used but was wrapped around the Kebab. Since I had made Greek salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta cheese, this was used as a garnish to the wrap. Fresh chopped mint was also added to the  wrap. 
  

  
  

  

  
  
  
  For these pictures, garden fresh lettuce, fresh Mint from my garden and grated carrots were used.   
  
  

  
  

  

  Summer Feast

  
  

  Delicious!

Lahmacun- Turkish Pizza

Like any good pizza, you need basic bread dough. In this case, I used about 4-5 cups of flour. Thank goodness as the number of guests was at first 3 and by evening went up to 10!   

 My Turkish Friend had prepared the lamb topping for the Lahmacun.  Interesting this was the first time she had made Turkish pizzas or any other pizza!

Ground lamb was used!  One recipe used tomato paste along with such spices as cayenne pepper, cumin, sweet paprika,  cinnamon along with garlic, plum tomatoes, small onion and serrano chile and parsley.  Another recipe used a can of tomatoes, onions, fresh parsley, garlic and paprika.  The recipe for this pizza used was

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tomato, diced
1 Jalapeño, chopped
paprika and cayenne pepper
fresh Mint and fresh parsley
juice of one lemon




The traditional way is to roll out the dough is into very thin discs.  In this case we divided the dough into about 12 balls.

The meat was spread evenly to the edges.  In some recipes, olive oil is brushed on, while others brushed milk before spreading the topping, one recipe spread caramelized onions before the meat topping was added.

My husband made has become quite proficient in making Dirty Banana Cocktail which was a refreshing end to this Turkish meal