Prep and cook 20 minutes (Plus 30 min marination)
Tender grilled lamb chops served with a tahini sauce garnished with dates, mint and feta cheese.
Once in a while you discover a recipe that gets everything right. A delicious blend of ingredients that come together easily and quickly. This is such a recipe from famed English cook Diana Henry and her book Simple is full of them.
At first glance I didn’t think it would work. What with a tahini/yoghurt sauce, sliced Majdool dates and crumbled feta cheese topped with a herb and mint garnish, I thought it was one of those recipes that had so many ingredients thrown at it in the hope that something would come out of it.
I was dead wrong. The dates give the recipe a hint of Moroccan cuisine that blends well with the bold Middle Eastern flavors and the freshness of the mint flavored garnish takes a little off the lamb’s rich, fatty taste.
This recipe is now my new go to lamb chops dish – which after half an hour’s marination, only takes 20 minutes to prep and cook.
You have to try it.
Lamb Chops With Dates, Feta and Tahini
by
Derek Farwagi
Ingredients
The marinade
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 1 tsp aleppo pepper
- 1 ½ lemon, juiced
- 6-8 lamb rib chops
The tahini base
- 3 tbsp tahini
- juice of half a lemon
- 1 tbsp water
- 1 garlic clove (crushed)
- ¼ cup greek yoghurt
- salt to taste
The granish
- 8 Majdool dates coarsely chopped
- ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1 a small palmful of mint, whole leaves only.
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1 a small palmful of dill, fronds only.
- 1 a small palmful of italian flat leaf parsely coarsely chopped.
- 2 tsp sumac
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
Marinate the rib chops
- In a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, combine 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 tsp ground cumin, 2 garlic cloves crushed, 1 tsp Aleppo pepper and the juice of half a lemon. Add lamb, turn to coat, cover baking dish and chill for at least 30 minutes
The tahini base
- In a small bowl, blend 3 tbs tahini with the juice of half a lemon until you have a thick paste. Add 1 tbsp water and mix till you have a thick but runny sauce. Add a crushed garlic clove and mix well. Add 1/4 cup of yogurt and blend until it has the consistency of thick heavy cream, adding more water if necessary. Salt to taste and set aside.
The garnish
- In a medium sized bowl, soak the 8 Majdool dates in boiling water for 5 minutes. Coarsely chopped them and blend in a 1/4 cup of feta cheese. Add 1 tsp white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 tsp sumac. Blend well but don't over do it. Try to keep the feta cheese in chunks. (Too much blending will turn the feta cheese into a paste).
- Blend in small palmfulls of mint, dill and coarsely chopped parsely. leaves.
Grill the rib chops
- Heat a grill, grill pan or cast-iron skillet over high heat until very hot. Remove lamb from marinade, season with salt and pepper and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side for medium rare. If you'd like, prop each lamb chop on its fatty side to briefly sear it, around 30 seconds. Transfer to a cutting board to rest.
Assemble dish
- Divide tahini yoghurt sauce into two portions and swirl on each plate as a base for the chops.
- Place chops on that base.
- Garnish with the date, feta cheese and herb mix and serve immediately.
Nutrition
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