Turkish Spiced Lamb Gravy

Turkish cooking leans on pepper paste the way Italian cooking leans on tomato puree, and it gives you a sweet, slightly smoky red base that suits lamb enormously. Add cumin, dried mint and Aleppo pepper flakes and you have a gravy with a completely different profile from anything British, but it still does the same job over roast lamb and potatoes. The garlic yoghurt on top is optional and very good.

Ingredients

Makes about 550ml, enough for six

• 3 tbsp lamb fat from the roasting tin, or olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp biber salçası Turkish red pepper paste, sweet or hot. Turkish and Middle Eastern grocers, and the world food aisle of larger supermarkets. Tomato puree plus a roasted red pepper is a rough stand in
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp dried mint
• 1 tsp pul biber Aleppo pepper flakes, mild and fruity with a slight oiliness. Ordinary chilli flakes are hotter, so use half
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp plain flour optional, for a slightly thicker gravy
• 600ml (1 pint) hot lamb or chicken stock
• 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 150g (5oz) thick natural yoghurt to serve
• 1 clove garlic, crushed, for the yoghurt
• salt and black pepper

Kit

• Roasting tin or heavy pan
• Wooden spoon
• Small bowl
• Sieve

Method

1. Rest the lamb and pour off all but three tablespoons of fat from the tin, leaving the dark juices and browned residue. Set the tin over a medium heat on the hob.

2. Add the onion and cook for ten minutes until soft and turning golden, scraping the base of the tin as it loosens. Add the chopped garlic for the last minute only.

3. Turn the heat down to low. Add the pepper paste and tomato puree and fry them gently for three or four minutes, stirring. The paste will darken and the oil will start to run red at the edges, which is exactly what you want.

4. Add the cumin, dried mint, pul biber and cinnamon and stir for forty seconds. Crumble the mint between your fingers as it goes in. Keep the heat low here, since the spices will scorch quickly in hot fat.

5. If you want a thicker gravy, sprinkle in the flour now and cook it for a minute. For the more traditional loose sauce, skip it.

6. Pour in the hot stock in stages, scraping and stirring, then bring to a simmer.

7. Cook uncovered for fifteen minutes until it has reduced by about a fifth and turned a deep rusty red brown. Stir in the pomegranate molasses and simmer for two more minutes.

8. Taste and season. It should be savoury and warmly spiced with a sweet sour edge from the molasses. Strain it if you want it smooth. Mix the yoghurt with the crushed garlic and a pinch of salt, and serve the gravy over the lamb with a spoonful of the garlic yoghurt on top.

Tips worth knowing

• Biber salçası comes in sweet (tatlı) and hot (acı). Sweet is the safer buy since you can always add pul biber, and a jar keeps for months in the fridge under a film of oil.
• Dried mint is used far more than fresh in Turkish cooking and they taste quite different. Fresh mint here would be wrong, so use dried and crumble it to wake the oils up.
• Pomegranate molasses varies in sharpness between brands. Start with a tablespoon and taste, because some are considerably more sour than others.
• If you have no roasting tin juices, start with three tablespoons of olive oil and add half a teaspoon of yeast extract with the stock to make up the depth.

Keeping and reheating

Four days in the fridge, three months in the freezer. Keep the garlic yoghurt separate and make it fresh, as it goes sharp and watery after a day. Reheat the gravy gently with a splash of stock.

Questions people ask