This was a really successful variation on our favorite lamb pizza. I topped it with the usual mix of ground lamb and sweet onions, flavored with cinnamon and tamarind, but then added butter-soft, long-cooked broccoli rabe. A recent issue of Saveur had a feature on vegetables cooked until very soft and sweet, and it occurred to me that bitter greens done this way would be a fantastic pizza topping, especially paired with the richness of lamb. I added mozzarella as well, but it would have been equally good with feta or no cheese at all.
. In the past I haven’t much gone for prunes in savory dishes (I was traumatized by a pork-prune empanada at an impressionable age), but since David was pushing it I finally decided it was time to give it another try. This lamb shank tagine converted us, completely.
. I knew I wanted to try a pizza with a leek-based sauce (I’m on a leek kick right now), but I wanted spiced lamb on it as well. In the end, it wasn’t quite like any of the source recipes, becoming something quite perfect all on its own: a melange of braised leeks tossed with hot pepper and tamarind-spiced lamb, layered with mozzarella and adorned with small ripe tomatoes, all resting on a chewy part-whole-wheat crust.
, which is a wildly attractive cookbook and full of the kinds of things I like best to eat. The recipe is really straightforward and simple, and takes hardly any time to prepare – about as long as it takes the pasta water to boil. The resulting pasta is a thick tangle of noodles drenched in tart yogurt sauce, studded with lamb and pine nuts and the occasional spark of hot chile or raw garlic.
