Hidden Depths

Tasting notes from the lamb steak thing... The meat itself looked decidedly unpromising from the outset: no bone and very little fat. But I persisted until the thing was at last cooked, with a modicum of caramelisation in evidence, and rested the bugger for a good twenty minutes, whilst I deglazed the baking dish with some decent dry white wine to make a crude sauce. I sliced the meat, napped it with the juices and put a dollop of the newly-discovered harissa alongside. Three things. The lamb was actually very good; the deglaze - with more white wine - was brilliant; and the harissa was a marvel. The depth of flavour in the lamb and sauce was one thing, but the complexity of the harissa just kept on developing and revealing more and more layers of taste long after my plate was cleared. It starts with a fairly powerful hit of smokey-ness, and develops into a complex of flavours that will take some time to fathom; ending in a glorious, but not overwhelming chilli hit. An extraordinary condiment. A not-half bad plate of meat and sauce, either. There's no picture of the food itself because I ate it all and it wasn't that photogenic, anyway, but pictured is a top-off picture of the jar of said harissa, revealing the coarse texture of the thing: far, far away from the smooth purée that most run of the mill harissas tend to be. BTW this meal would be even tastier done with those tiny, bony, fatty lamb chops that we used to get for the barbie or to do our old tray baked lamb thing. Here's to the next one...