Shuwa

Before you start

• an oven version of a pit-roast — the sand, the embers and the smoke are the part you cannot have at home
• marinate the night before
• about five hours in a low oven, all of it the oven’s

Ingredients

Serves 4 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 800glamb shoulder — on the bone if you can get it
• 250gbasmati rice
• 80gsoft dates
• 3 tspghee
• 3 tspcumin, coriander seed, cardamom and dried chilli
• 6garlic cloves
• 2limes
• to tastesalt

Method

6 steps

1. chop · 10m

   Pit the dates and work them to a rough paste with the back of a knife, then pound in the garlic, the toasted spices, lime juice and plenty of salt.

2. fold · 6m

   Score the lamb down to the bone in a few places and rub the paste into every cut and crease. It should be coated, not dusted.

3. rest · 12 hours walk away

   Covered, in the fridge overnight. Four hours does something; twelve does the thing you actually want.

4. roast · 5 hours walk away

   Wrapped tight in banana leaf if you have it and then two layers of foil, in a tin with a splash of water, at the lowest useful oven setting.

5. boil · 14m walk away

   Near the end, rice on with the strained juices from the tin made up to twice the rice’s volume with water, lid on, lowest heat.

6. finish · 6m

   Unwrap away from yourself — the steam is fierce — and pull the meat off the bone in long pieces straight onto the rice.