Lamb from A to Z - a marriage of heart and mind

Gourmetpedia
New Zealand is a major market with its countless butcher shops filled with dozens of different preparations, one as enticing as the next.

The Maghreb countries are the uncontested masters of spit-roasted lamb (mechoui or machwi), tagines, and the incomparable couscous royale that you can savour at La Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco.

Eastern Europe is unsurpassed for lamb dishes simmered slowly over a corner of the fire for hours at a time, suspended on a tripod in the fireplace.

Central Europe, meanwhile, has been imbued with flavours brought back by its travelling cooks and conquerors, and takes wonderful advantage of the riches it possesses in its ideal lamb-raising lands, whether in the southwest, the French or Spanish Pyrenees, the plains, the sweet, tender and juicy grasses of the Loire valley (the famous “garden of France”), or the Atlantic seacoast with its famous lamb from Mont Saint-Michel: salt meadow lamb with a sublime flavour.

Salt meadow lamb grazes on grass that has been imbued with the scents and flavours of the sea, and for dessert a few young and tender seaweed shoots that have remained clinging to the rocks. This slightly salty flavour gives the meat an extraordinary finesse - a simple leg of salt meadow lamb rubbed gently with fleur de sel and roasted in the oven will bring tears of joy to your eyes… and when you realize that the tears are lovely little pearls of salt water, you’ll know what I’m getting at.

Lamb generally likes associating with garlic, ginger, mint, mustard and rosemary, but is not averse to ethnic matches.