lamb and things

This week's recipe comes from the excellent and gorgeous Pomegranates and Pine Nuts, by Bethany Kehdy.  She calls it "Auntie Anwar's Mansaf Risotto," but I don't have an Auntie Anwar, I don't know what "mansaf" means (until it occurred to me to check Wikipedia while writing this sentence), and I didn't know until after making this for dinner that risotto is just a rice dish.  I don't know what I thought it was instead, but I thought it was somehow more complicated than "rice in broth."  Hey, I learned stuff!  Kehdy mentions in the book that she has "tweaked" her aunt's recipe.  You'll notice I kept tweaking, or more accurately, I got lazy about sourcing some ingredients.

Bethany's Auntie Anwar's Lamb and Rice and Yogurt Stuff
2 T butter
30 ounces lamb shank(s)
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 onion, quartered (I think onions are getting really big, so I quartered half an onion, and I think it was enough.  Do what you will)
10 garlic cloves.  Mince 5, leave the other 5 whole.
6 cardamom pods
1 bay leaf (sticking with Dad's tradition, whenever the recipe says "1 bay leaf," I use 2.)
1 cinnamon stick
1 C short-grain or risotto rice (I didn't want a third kind of rice in my tiny kitchen, so I used long-grain brown rice.  The nice thing about serving a new recipe to people who've never had it before is that as long as they think it tastes good, they won't know you did it wrong)
1 t turmeric
3 1/4 C Greek yogurt
1 egg
1 T cornstarch, if needed (I didn't.  The yogurt looks pretty runny when it first starts to cook, but thickens if you give it a little time)
3 T pine nuts
3 T blanched almonds (I couldn't find these, so I used sliced almonds.  I'm too lazy to blanch my own almonds unless the recipe makes a sufficient case as to why blanching matters)
juice of 2 lemons (I used 4-6 T lemon juice from a bottle)
mint leaves, finely chopped, to sprinkle as a topping
salt and black pepper

1. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  I used my Lodge combo cooker, because I use it whenever I get an excuse.  Add the shanks, carrots, onion, whole garlic cloves, cardamom, bay leaf, and cinnamon, and cook 4-5 minutes, turning frequently, until meat is brown.  Salt to taste, then add 5 C water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 1 hour, until meat is tender and falling off the bone (Mine wasn't quite "falling off" the way I expected, but it was pulling away from the bone, and I figured it was ready).  Strain well, reserving stock and meat, but discarding veggies and spices.  (Have you ever boiled a cinnamon stick?  It unrolls, and looks like a curled cinnamon sheet.  Neat!)
2. Put the meat in a bowl to cool a little.  We'll get back to it later.  For now, put the rice, 3 1/4 C of the reserved stock, and the turmeric in a separate saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 25 minutes, until rice is cooked.  You can add broth and stir as needed to get a creamy, risotto texture, but if you're like me and have no idea what you're doing, nor what risotto is supposed to be, you'll probably skip the extra broth and be ok.  Season with salt and pepper.
3. While the rice cooks, cut the meat from the bones and hack it into smaller, bite-size pieces.  Put the yogurt into the pan you used to cook the meat and cook over medium heat.  Whisk in the egg.  Add the meat and bring the whole mess to a gentle boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, 15-20 minutes, until the yogurt is thick and creamy.  If the mixture is too runny, you can add the cornstarch and mix well.
4. Toast the pine nuts and almonds in a little skillet 1-2 minutes, shaking frequently, until golden.
5. Mix the crushed garlic and lemon juice in a small bowl.  Bethany serves hers for a whole table, but we have a small table, and two guests for dinner that night, so I made individual servings.  Put a round of Arabic bread (see below) on each plate.  Pour some of the lemon mixture over the bread, spoon on some rice, then some of the lamb-yogurt sauce.  Top with chopped mint and toasted nuts.

Bethany's picture is a whole lot prettier than mine, but she's done this before.

Arabic Bread
2.5 C bread flour (unbleached all-purpose also works)
1/2 t salt
1 t sugar
4 T olive oil
2 t yeast

1. Mix flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.  Add olive oil and mix well.
2. Add yeast to 2/3 C warm water and stir until it dissolves.  Pout yeast mixture into the flour mixture, a little at a time, combining it with your hands until a ball forms.
3. Knead the dough on a clean, floured counter top until smooth and elastic (Maybe ten minutes? The more bread you've made, the easier it will be for you to gauge things like this by grabbing the dough ball).  Return dough to mixing bowl and score the top to relieve surface tension.  Cover with a clean, damp dish towel and let rise for about an hour.  It should double in size.
4. Punch down, knead gently, and roll into a log.  Separate it into four equal pieces.  Roll out each dough ball into a round about 8 " in diameter.  You may have to flour your counter top.  Mine seems to be magical in this regard, perhaps to make up for the annoying color pattern (I can never tell when the damn thing is clean.  Or dirty.  It's maddening.)  Cover the rounds with a dish towel and let rest 10 minutes.
5. Before you punch your doughball, preheat the oven to 450F.  Stick a cookie sheet in there to get warm.  When the rounds are ready, put one or two on a sheet (the book says one at a time, but two fit on my sheets, and I had four hungry people waiting for dinner.  One of those four was me, so I wasted no time putting food on the table) and bake 2-3 minutes, until the top and edges are slightly golden and a pocket of air has formed.  Once that pocket forms, try not to let them cook more than another minute, but that may not be as critical if you don't plan to consume all of the bread in the next hour or so)

The breads can be kept wrapped in a fridge 2-3 days, or in a freezer 1-2 months.  Allow half an hour to thaw.  Pop them in a microwave or hot oven to re-warm.