Baa baa salt sheep

A recipe for Middle Eastern slow-roasted lamb

Photo by Emma Miller on Unsplash

You may never have been to Rye on the south coast of England. But you will probably recognise it from period costume dramas filmed along its cobbled streets. The Crown? Tick. The recent Miss Austen? Tick. Mapp & Lucia? The Monuments Men? Cold Comfort Farm? Tick. The sign outside the Mermaid Inn proudly (patronisingly?) declares ‘Rebuilt in 1420’. Beat that, toddler nations!

The writer Henry James moved there, to Lamb House, where he wrote a number of novels and entertained the literati of his day - Edith Wharton, Ford Maddox Ford, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and other carousers. It’s where German George from Hanover, who spoke not a word of English, was put up on his first night in the country in 1714 when the supply of the royal line of Stuarts ran out and the English had to shop around for somebody from anywhere to become King of England. His ship beached in a ferocious storm on Camber Sands nearby. He was brought up to Rye to shelter in Lamb House, the residence of the town’s mayor whose wife was in the process of giving birth. She of course was ousted from the marital bed to cede it to the future monarch, George the First of six of them so far, with Prince William’s offspring a future George, if all this carries on.

Lamb House

Rye was good at making the most of ferocious storms, a network of tunnels running, to this day, under the houses so that the customs men could never locate the barrels of French brandy that washed up on shore from the shipwrecks in the English Channel. Often the shipwrecks occurred as a result of ‘malfunctioning’ beacons, lit to warn sailors away from the rocks.

Lambs on the salt marshes

Along with North Wales, Rye is also famous for its lamb which grazes on the salt marshes that were covered in sea water before the English Channel receded, aided by the construction of dykes. Lamb, for familiar biblical reasons, is associated with Easter. But in spring, in every country where lamb is respected as probably the meat with the most flavour, it’s at its best and a particular seasonal treat. Rye’s lamb comes with a grassy back note singular to it and much darker meat.

The French have long known about the qualities of salt marsh lamb. Sold as agneau pré-salé, highly prized and priced, it’s a terroir delicacy they can’t get enough of. The lambs from the northern Baie de Somme, region of that appalling WW1 battlefield, have their own coveted AOC label.

Lambs are born between March and April. After four to six weeks of relying on their mother’s milk, grass is added to their feed. Then they are released to graze on the marshes which are regularly flooded by overflowing sea dykes and, in northern France, the ocean. The marshes on both sides of the English Channel (La Manche, ‘The Sleeve’, if you’re French) are home to a wide variety of mineral-fed, iodine-rich grasses, and plants like glasswort, sea purslane, samphire and sea lavender, which give salt marsh lambs extra layers of flavour. The plants also encourage a greater retention of moisture in the muscle cells of the meat, making it more tender. What the lamb does not taste of is either salt or the fishiness of seaweed as you might have assumed.

Sheep have a reputation for being stupid. Yet on the salt marshes in France it’s been noted that the leader of the flock can sense when the tide is coming in and leads the beasts in a long line back up the estuary of the Baie de Somme to higher ground. It then leads them back to the marshland once the tide has receded.

So with all this flavour in their meat, you might wonder why, for the Easter feast, I slow-roasted my lamb in a plethora of Middle Eastern spices and didn’t just let the lamb speak for its honest self. Feel free to make your own judgment about my intelligence: I have myself, in retrospect - which is always too late. But since you are unlikely to get hold of a salt marsh lamb, this recipe will make the most of a common supermarket leg or shoulder. (The latter has more flavour, in my view. Buy either one with the bone in for even more.) While you can serve it with great joy with roasted potatoes, continue the Middle East theme with a scattering of pomegranate seeds, drizzles of loosened humous, couscous, and sides of fried aubergine chunks turned in a sauce of pomegranate molasses, rose harissa and vinegar then sprinkled with scallions and cilantro, plus a citrus salad of thinly shaved endive, fennel and orange which I of course forgot in the fridge, and you will have a feast for any spring occasion.

Serves 8-12 depending on number of side dishes

2.5 kg/5½ lbs shoulder or leg of lamb, bone in

For the marinade

5-6 tablespoons tamarind paste
5 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
½ tablespoon red pepper flakes (or double depending on your heat enthusiasm)
1 tablespoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon cardamon powder (from the crushed black seeds if you have pods)
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder (a Sri Lankan cinnamon stick is the real McKoy)
1 tablespoon cumin powder (from toasted then crushed cumin seeds)
1 tablespoon coriander powder (from crushed seeds)
2 tablespoons date vinegar or 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses+1 tablespoon vinegar
Handful of pomegranate seeds (optional)
Leaves from a small bunch of fresh coriander/cilantro roughly chopped

(I use a pestle and mortar to crush my spices. But a coffee blender will do it.)

Pierce the lamb thoroughly all over with the sharp point of a knife and slip a sliver of garlic into each cut.

Make a slurry from all the marinade ingredients and rub it well into the lamb. Wrap the lamb in parchment paper then two sheets of tin foil (maybe a large freezer bag, too, to kept the scent infusing the rest of the fridge) and store in the fridge at least 4 hours. I do it overnight. Or not at all, actually, which isn’t helpful to tell you. You’ll get less pungency but your guests probably won’t know.

Preheat oven to 150C/300F.

Bring lamb to room temperature and lay in a baking pan. Pour in 4 cups of water or white wine and seal the pan tightly with tin foil. Roast for 4 hours, basting two or three times. Remove the tin foil, raise the heat to 180C/350F and roast for 20-30 minutes more.

Move the lamb to a warm platter, covering loosely with tin foil, to rest for 20 minutes in a warm spot. Strain the juices through a fine sieve to eliminate any bits of dried spices and pour into a gras-maigre gravy/fat separator, if you have one. Or into a narrow jug, spooning off as much of the surface fat as you can.

With a fork in each hand, shred the lamb, discarding the bone and removing any silverskin connective tissue, then pour over the juices. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds and roughly chopped fresh coriander/cilantro about and serve.

Confession: I took the lamb out of the oven the day before Easter and chilled it in its juices in the fridge. The next day, I brought it back to room temperature and continued the cooking. This way, I was able to prang off the lid of lamb fat set on top of the juices.