Here's how it happens:
Peter has a kumquat tree at the edge of his patio in Altadena, and I fall in love with the little tree, decorated with citrus-y sunshine -- a thousand ripe mini-oranges -- and we don't have kumquats growing in Oregon. Peter and his kids oblige me, suddenly I have bags-full, and I take pounds of them home after Andrew's high-school graduation festivities.
But I don't know what to do with bags-full of kumquats.
Seems you can just eat them, rind and all, but my supply won't last until next October when we might possibly have worked our way through the bounty.
So, on to the web. Ah. Kumquat salsa. This is delicious. Doesn't make a dent. So, marmalade? It's a bit tedious, this recipe, as you have to get the seeds out, thumb off the flesh, put seeds and flesh in a cheesecloth bag, slice the rind into slivers, and cook the whole with a lot of sugar for a long time until it turns, magically, into jam. And I mean only two or three tiny half-pints per hours of labor.
Delicious. But . . . I cook up some of the fruit with an orange I had on hand and use the result to decorate a custard pie. A very good idea.
Then, a phone call from Charlie, who would like me to send him a bottle of Hot Lips Cherry soda that he will give as an end-of-year gift to a favorite teacher. (Sometimes, you just don't ask.) In return, Charlie says, he will pick more kumquats for me. Who can resist Charlie? And soon the soda is on the way and I receive another several pounds of this erst-while mysterious fruit.
I give some to Vik, and am inspired when she returns a jar of kumquat-olive oil-rosemary-garlic condiment. Hmm. How about preserved kumquats ala preserved lemons?
A trip to the coast and a discovery of a cooking shop in Nye Beach, where we find a cookbook called A Month in Marakesh, with pages of preserved lemon recipes. Couldn't resist, and we came home to play with a new cuisine. (New to us, not, of course, actually new!) And so we find Mechoui Lamb. Looks fabulous. Larry will execute. Soon the smell of a paste called Smen is maddening us, but the lamb takes 3 hours to cook. Fine, we'll go for a walk.
The Terwilliger is beautiful in this season, and we are gone for an hour and a half while the lamb is roasting. Come home to, well, the technical term is shoe leather, but that's overworked. What? Well, we were making but a half the recipe, forgot to calibrate the time in the oven correspondingly. So. We chopped the stuff, made a quick yoghurt-cuke sauce, chopped lettuce and tomatoes and put the lot into the pita bread we'd purchased to go with the Mechoui. Good enough, but . . .
We'll try again with the second half of the lamb now waiting for us in the freezer. But here's the recipe for you: (Don't be afraid, it's really, really good. I think.)
MECHOUI LAMB serves 6-8 from A Month in Marakesh
3 lb. lamb shoulder/leg
7 1/2 oz cold water
Smen paste:
6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 oz fresh ginger, peeled and chopped ( but I love those tubes of Gourmet Garden flavors instead)
1 TBS ground ginger
1 TBS ground cumin
1 TBS ground coriander
2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. paprika
1/2 bunch flat-leaf parsley
1/2 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped (of course I leave that out!)
3 1/2 oz butter, softened
sea salt
freshly gound black pepper
Crushed Roast Potatoes and Tomatoes (we never got this far, unfortunately, but you should try it)
2 lb. baby potatoes
5 tomatoes, some halved and some quartered
1 1/3 cup bolack olives, pitted
sea salt
2 TBS ex. virgin olive oil, for drizzling.
For Smen paste: place all ingredients in food processor. Season with salt and pepper and blend to a fine paste. Transfer to a bowl.
Slash lamb with sharp knife and rub the Smen paste all over lamb. Place lamb in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Par-boil potatoes in saucepan of salted, boiling water. Drain and roughly crush with a fork. Combine potatoes, tomatoes and olives in a bowl. Season with sea salt and drizzle with oil.
Remove lamb from refrig and allow to come to room temp. Preheat oven to 430 degrees. Transfer the lamb and any remaining Smen paste to a roasting pan, pour water around the lamb and roast in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
Turn oven down to 350 and roast for 3 more hours, (or not, of course, if you're not making the whole recipe!) basting occasionally until meat is tender. Make sure the water does not boil dry, if so, add a bit more. Scatter crushed potatoes, tomatoes and oil around the lamb 45 minutes before you take it out of the oven.
Remove lamb from oven and let rest, covered with foil, 15 minutes.
That's it. Serve it up.
It surely took me longer to type this recipe than it did for us to prepare it! But where, you may ask, are the preserved kumquats? Still in the jar. I did make up a batch and they look very beautiful. Maybe soon I'll try another middle-Eastern recipe that can use them, and then let you know. And that mix of cooked kumquat and orange in the refrigerator -- I chop tablespoons of it an add it to salads. Kumquats are the gift that just keeps on giving!
