Lamb Stew With Apricots and Mint Over White Beans — From a Spanish Dream
Image by Liza Schoenfein
By Liza Schoenfein April 14, 2016
In Barcelona with my family a few years ago at Passover, I was all set to make a version of Claudia Roden’s beef tagine with sweet potatoes in the tiny kitchen of our rental apartment. I’d found the recipe in her before I left.
Then a funny, slightly mystical-feeling thing happened. I’m not really a dreamer, in that I almost never remember my dreams and don’t take much stock in them when I do. But on the morning of the first Seder, I dreamt vividly that I was braising lamb in wine and stock. When it was nearly done, I felt an urgency to run out for apricots, fresh mint and honey to add to the pot. I woke up shaking my head. Spring lamb, pascal lamb… I wondered if this was a traditional Sephardic Seder meal.
I Googled “braised lamb for passover?” and in a few seconds I had my answer: In 1988 Florence Fabricant wrote in the New York Times, “As a mark of respect for the memory of the temple sacrifices, the eating of a whole roasted lamb on Passover is forbidden by the code of Jewish law called Shulhan Arukh, which was first printed in Venice in 1565. Jews who strictly interpret this rule will not eat roasted meat or poultry of any kind for their seder. Others will simply not eat roasted lamb. Jews who accept a looser interpretation of the law will eat lamb, but not if it is roasted.”
Braised lamb, she wrote, is fine, and further, it turns out to be a common dish on the Sephardic Passover table. I didn’t have a recipe, and I didn’t want one. I would follow my dream, minus the honey, which I thought would make the dried-fruit-laced dish too sweet. Plus, our rental kitchen came with absolutely no pantry—not even salt—so I wanted to keep the ingredients to a minimum, and not buy staples that the housekeeper would toss in the trash as soon as we were gone.
At the Boqueria, I bought the lamb at a stall called Carnes Serrano Calidad, where the butchers, all women, didn’t speak a word of English between them. I waded through crowds of tourists snapping photos on cellphones and slurping brightly colored juices from plastc cups and picked up the rest of the ingredients: salt and cinnamon from a fragrant spice stand; dried dates, apricots and roasted Marcona almonds from a vendor of jewel-like nuts and dried and candied fruits; leeks, garlic, asparagus, apples, oranges and fresh mint from a stall brimming with vibrant produce.
Now I had a new dilemma — the traditional “What starch to serve?” one. I fingered a bag of rice, considering the possibility of a saffron-infused pilaf to serve with the meat, but my heart wasn’t in it. I love braised lamb with white beans, which turn out to be permissible on the Sephardic seder menu but not the Ashkenazic. “When in Spain…,” I decided. (Who would imagine that today kitniyot would be deemed acceptable to Ashkenazim on Pesach?) The problem was, I wouldn’t have time to soak them. The meal was in a matter of hours.
I’m not a bean purist: I make fine chili with well rinsed black or red beans from a can. But white beans are different. I find the canned version to be mushy and more glaringly without the fine character of “real” ones, so I prefer to soak and simmer my own. But it was now afternoon so I resolved to stop at the grocery store by the apartment for the broth, wine, and either rice or canned beans — I’d figure it out when I got there.
We began heading home, and that’s when the second bit of Passover mysticism struck. We soon found ourselves on a little street I hadn’t walked down before, dotted with small food shops. Suddenly there was a little store, open to the street, with mint-colored walls, its counter laden with big bowls of what looked like — could it be?—cooked legumes. Lentils. Chickpeas. And there they were: fat, white cannelini beans. All plain, undressed, ready to be incorporated into any dish the cook might imagine.
Here is the resulting recipe.
Lamb Shanks With Apricots and Mint Over White Beans
Serves 6
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
6 lamb shanks
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 leeks, sliced into rounds
6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 quart chicken broth
2 cups white Rioja or other dry white wine
1 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
Freshly grated black pepper
4 cups cooked cannellini beans or other white beans
½ cup fresh mint leaves, torn
1) In a small bowl combine cinnamon and salt and rub all over lamb. In a large, heavy pot, brown lamb in half the olive oil over medium-high heat, adding additional oil if necessary. Remove lamb and lower heat. Drain excess fat from pot and add remaining oil.
2) Add leeks and garlic and cook, stirring, 3-4 minutes, until softened. Return lamb to the pot and add chicken broth and wine. Simmer 2 hours over low heat.
3) Add apricots and simmer ½ hour more, or until lamb is very tender. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary. Serve over white beans, garnished with mint.
Liza Schoenfein is the food editor of the Forward. A version of this article appeared on her blog Life, Death & Dinner. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @LifeDeathDinner
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