Alright, today were doing braised lamb and eggplant cous cous. It’s a really delicious dish, kind of a Greek North African mediterannean type combination and we’re also going to do an eggplant sex test. See now I got your attention.
Yes, there is a theory that a female eggplant, the one I’m holding here would be round indentation has more seeds than the male eggplant shown here which has the oval, almost like a scar at the end. That’s how you can tell a male from a female eggplant. So before we do this big test very exciting here, this is real science. We’re going to peel our eggplant. You can use a paring knife or a vegetable peeler. Now this was the female eggplant, alright. So it had that amount of seed, there’s the male eggplant and it looks about the same. So actually, as I look closely, that was the male on your right. It did have a few less seeds.
So when you’re buying eggplant. Try to get the ones with the oval scar at the end not the round indentation. Alright, anyway, we’re going to dice up our eggplant. And here’s the recipe ingredients, some lamb shoulder. Okay, I got 2 pounds of lamb shoulder, those are called blade chops. There’s my eggplant. All of the amounts are on the website, foodwishes.com. I’m not giving any amounts anymore. Go to the website to read the recipe. I got some tomatoes, some garlic, some seasoning, salt and pepper. We got some dried herb provence, secret ingredient cinnamon. And also something that goes very well with lamb and eggplant is ground cumin.
So step one here, in a not licroce dutch oven, I hope you have one of these. Or something with tight fitting lid that’s heavy and thick. You’re going to sear on fairly high heat and a little bit of olive oil, your four lamb shoulder chops. Now, why I’m using shoulder, it’s cheaper than lamb loin, has more fat, it’ll braised much better. It’s actually cheaper than leg of lamb. So I think it’s a nice cut to use for this, those about 5-6 minutes on each side, we got them nice and brown. I’m going to add half an onion that I just roughly chopped. And give that about a 5 minute sweat and a little bit of salt and pepper.
.After 5 minutes, in went my cubed up eggplant, again those are like a 1 inch pieces. You don’t have to be exact with this, but try to get them uniform. Okay, sauté that for about 5 minutes and then we’re going to start adding our seasonings. So that was the cinnamon, about a teaspoon of cinnamon. We’re going to put some dry herb. I’m going to say it’s going to be about a teaspoon. But I’ll going to wait to see my hand first, cumin first, so it’s a teaspoon of cumin. Cumin cinnamon, very nice with lamb. Very, very natural combination. Have a real affinity with lamb dishes. So don’t be scared in putting cinnamon with savory foods. There’s my herb de provence, teaspoon of that. It actually has a little bit of lavender in it, which gives us off sort of really interesting flavor. Got to get your herb de provence. There goes three cloves of garlic that I crushed. I don’t know why you try and write this stuff down. It’s on the website, foodwishes.com, all the ingredients are there.
Alright, we’re going to add, well I don’t really want it too spicy but I’m going to with about a half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes. If you want to use cayenne, go ahead. I kind of like the look of the little red pepper flakes in there. And then some tomato product, that’s about a half of cup of tomato. You can use chopped up tomato, that’s just a regular half a cup of marinara sauce I have left over. I like it to have a little bit of tomato. I don’t want it to be a tomato sauce. So it’s just a little bit.
Alright, we’ll going to give that a little sizzle. Kind of wake up those herbs and spices, so we’ll give that about 5 minutes on medium high heat just to get stuff kind of acquainted. And then we’re going to add one quart of chicken stock, or chicken broth, it doesn’t matter. So one quart, we’re going to put our lamb shoulder back in. Again, those were four lamb shoulder chops. About 2 pounds of meat all together. The bone is in there, I think that adds more flavor, and they’re usually are sold with the bone in. It’s only about 4 bucks a pound, about half price that you’re going to pay for a leg of lamb.
Bring that up to a gentle simmer. Alright. Soon as you see it simmering. Turn the heat down to low and let it braised gently for 2 hours. So two hours later, we’re going to take the lid off. Alright, the eggplants probably cooked off almost to nothing. The lamb is literally falling off the bones. See, bone, no lamb attach. So what I want you to do is I want you to take your tongs and pull out the pieces of lamb and put those in a little bowl or little plate. Just let those cool enough to touch, because what we’ll going to do is we’re going to pull the meat off and add it back to the eggplant mixture.
Alright, now pay attention because we’re going to go fast. What we’re going to do is we’re going to separate that braising liquid from the eggplant, I’m just going to use a strainer. So I’m going to strain it all that eggplant juice through a strainer so I can reserve the liquid. I should have about a quart plus a little bit of juice, because we add a quart of stock. So for four cups of cous cous, I’m going to need four and a half cups of the braising liquid.
Alright, as soon as that meat is cool enough to handle, I want you to put it back into the eggplant. Make sure and just cover that, keep it warm. And then into a stock pot, because this has to be boiling hot when we add it to our cous cous, measure your four cups. Alright, sure there is three, there’s four and then I have just a little bit left in the bowl. So it was about four and a half cups total. So that worked out perfect.
We’re going to measure four cups, so it’s a little less, four cups of whole wheat cous cous. And very important stuff here. And by the way, cous cous is not a grain it’s actually little tiny bits of pasta. So we’re going to add some 3 or 4 tablespoons olive oil, and with your fork you want to mix it up all around. You want to all those little bits of semolina pasta there to be coated with the olive oil before we add our hot liquid. So on the stove, we have our four and a half cups of the lamb stock bringing it up to a boil. I’m just going to give it a pinch of our rosemary salt. By the way I make this rosemary salt, should be available on the site soon.
And here’s how you cook cous cous. It is the world’s easiest thing to make. You pour over your hot liquid which was the lamb stock, four and a half cups. And you wrap it for five minutes. Alright, don’t stir it, don’t do anything. So wrap it real tight, very important. It’s going to be just really tightly wrapped and then just leave it alone for five minutes. Those are graphics to remind you in case didn’t believe me.
Alright, five minutes later, I’m going to un-wrap it and the most important step. With the tip of your fork, you got to fluff. Just in a rotating motion, just use the tip of your fork and break up all those grain of cous cous. And you’ll get this beautiful, light, airy fluffy, amazing, amazing product. If you let it sit there, it’ll just be one big lump.
And then to serve, so easy, I put the hot cous cous on a platter. I pour over my eggplant lamb, braised lamb mixture. I top with some nice Greek fetish cheese, give a little bit of a salty kind of a thang. I also, as you see, top off with some beautiful fresh herbs. I have a little bit of mince, some Italian parsley. Little bit of oregano. Really, really nice combination of flavors.
Again, cous cous cannot be easier, those braised lamb shoulders, almost full proof. Eggplant lamb natural. Perfect dish for banquet or a buffet, at dinner party. Put it in the middle of the table. The next day cold, throw a little oil and vinegar in there, you got a nice lamb eggplant tubui salad.
Anyway, really hope you give this a try. Make sure you go to the website. Get all the details, the information on the ingredient amounts and the procedure and enjoy.
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