I shared my Sunday Cypriot roast lamb on Instagram yesterday and my DMs overloaded! I thought I should strike while the iron’s hot and pull together the recipe to share with you all.
A lot of traditional Cypriot recipes originate from small villages with limited resources. This usually means they’re quite simple, requiring few ingredients and yet are extremely rich in flavour.
With influences from Turkey and Greece, our cuisine is pretty diverse and while we love to use spices, our food is rarely spicy. This dish for instance uses LASHINGS of cumin, but when enjoyed with a crisp, zesty salad, it makes for a perfectly balanced bite.
This recipe is another famous one of my dad’s. ‘Fırın’ (oven) Kebab was very popular in our restaurant when growing up and it became one of my favorites. When I first made it myself I felt so overjoyed! I made it just like ‘baba’s’ (dad’s) and while it takes a long time in the oven, it’s actually really easy to throw together and it’s so unbelievably tasty.
I’d usually make it using lamb necks or shoulders but I couldn’t get hold of them at the time of making this recipe so I used chunks of lamb fillet instead (fancy).
Cooking a shoulder for 3 hours makes it so tender and delicious. It just falls off the bone and is so full of flavour. I definitely recommend using them if you can.
I hear so often from British friends that they don’t like lamb. I’d bet money that if they tasted this recipe they’d realise they just hadn’t had it cooked properly before.
If you fancy switching up your Sunday roast, try this out and let me know what you think in the comments!
Cypriot Roast Lamb Recipe
Equipment
- Deep, hob-proof baking tray
Ingredients
- 3 Lamb shoulders or 600g cubed lamb pieces
- 3 Large red potatoes Cut into large chunks
- Salt
- Pepper
- Ground Cumin
- 2 White onions Sliced
- 3 Tomatoes Sliced
- 2 tbsp Cooking oil
- 2 tbsp Tomato purée
- 1.5 ltr Hot water
- 4 Bay leaves
- 2 Cinnamon sticks
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan/gas mark 5
- In a deep, hob proof baking tray, place the lamb shoulders/cubes on one side and the evenly cut roast potatoes on the other side.
- Cover the meat and potatoes with salt and pepper.
- Then generously and consistently coat everything in cumin powder (this dish loves cumin, so don’t be shy!).
- Spread the onions and tomatoes all over to cover the meat and potatoes. These provide immense flavour and also act as a buffer between the meat and potatoes and the heat of the oven.
- Pour the oil over the potatoes (the lamb doesn’t really need oil, but the potatoes do to stop them from breaking up during cooking).
- Add the bay leaves and cinnamon sticks
- Dissolve the tomato purée in the hot water and then pour all over, ensuring that it mixes well with the spices. The liquid should be almost covering the food.
- Place the dish over the hob and bring to the boil (this will save about 30 mins of oven cooking time).
- Cover the dish with foil and place on the middle shelf of the oven, cook for 2.5 hours or until the meat falls off the bone.
- Remove the foil and cook for another 30 minutes to allow the meat and potatoes to turn a nice golden brown. Let the onions and tomatoes burn a little – it adds to the taste.
- Serve with a lettuce, celery, cucumber and coriander (and anything else you like) salad with a generous dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, red wine (or balsamic) vinegar and salt. The citrus and vinegar really compliment and cut through the richness of the cumin and tomato.
