I have long wondered why lamb ribs are one of those few things that don’t sell well, yet they are so delicious and easy to prepare…
Perhaps people aren’t familiar with cooking them and are shy to try?…
I decided to make lamb ribs for dinner and take notes as I created the dish, with things I already had in my pantry and some fresh apples from the garden. It was absolutely delicious and I hope you try it! (I’m looking forward to my ‘leftovers lunch’ at work today!
We are a family of 6 and I have leftovers for 2… to give you an idea whether you want to split the recipe of make it for a larger party.
4 lb lamb ribs, I cut between each bone to separate them.
Then I heated a cast iron frying pan with a little P2P lard and put the ribs in to sear in small batches.
While they were searing, I heated another cast iron pan, dry, to toast 2 tsp cumin, 2 tsp coriander seeds and 1 tsp cardamom seeds.
I chopped about 2 cups of dates (degleg noor because they are less sweet) and about 4 lb of fresh apples from my garden.
As the ribs were seared, I added them into a casserole dish, one layer of ribs, one layer of apples, some dates, a sprinkle of salt and some of the toasted spices and a broken cinnamon stick in each layer. I repeated this there times to fit all the ingredients.
There were beautiful lamb and lard dripping in the pan from searing the ribs, of course these get drizzled over the apple-lamb dish!
I placed the casserole with a lid in the oven at 425 degrees for an hour. I did that temperature only because that was the temperature required for the flatbread I was making at the same time, but it worked out really well!
Served the dish with fresh bread, it was delicious, at this temperature the dates caramelized and had really great texture which I was please with, as usually though I appreciate the flavour they bring to some meat dished, I never appreciate the squishy texture, so I was happy with that.
