Mortar and pestle soup with chickpeas, lamb and flatbread

By: Greg Malouf, Lucy Malouf
From: New Middle Eastern Food
Serves: 6
Photographer: Mark Roper

This soup, known as dizi, became one of our favourite quick-and-easy lunch dishes on our travels around Iran, and we would actively seek out specialist restaurants. Dizi is a simple enough idea: small chunks of meat on the bone are simmered slowly over several hours with potato, tomatoes, beans and lamb tail fat, which releases an unctuous richness. To serve, the broth is poured into a bowl onto pieces of flatbread and slurped up with a squeeze of sour orange or lemon. The bone is then fished out and discarded, and the remaining meat, fat and vegetables are pounded to a coarse paste. This tasty mush (for want of a better word) is eaten with plenty more flatbread, pickles, onion, sour orange (or any citrus, really) and fresh herbs (try tarragon, mint and basil). It’s far from refined, but unspeakably delicious.

This version omits the lamb tail fat to suit western palates, and it is probably a tad more spiced than authentic dizi. The longer you can simmer the lamb, the better the result.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
3 tablespoons	olive oil
3	lamb shanks
1 teaspoon	sea salt
8	small shallots, peeled
6	garlic cloves, peeled
1 1/2 teaspoons	ground turmeric
1 teaspoon	ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon	freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon	tomato paste
250g	dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained
8 sprigs	thyme
2	bay leaves
2 litres	water
2	potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
12	small tomatoes
	flatbread, fresh herbs, onion wedges and citrus wedges, to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 160ºC.
Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based casserole dish over a high heat. Add the lamb shanks and season with salt, then brown all over and remove from the pan.
Add the shallots, garlic and spices to the pan and fry over a medium heat for a few minutes until the vegetables soften. Stir in the tomato paste and fry for a minute, then stir in the chickpeas. Return the lamb shanks to the pan with the thyme and bay leaves and pour in the water. Cover the pan and cook in the oven for 2–3 hours, or until the meat is falling away from the bones.
Tuck the potatoes and tomatoes in among the lamb shanks and return the pan to the oven for another 30 minutes, or until the potato is tender.
Lift the lamb shanks from the soup and remove the meat from the bones. Break the meat roughly into smallish chunks and return it to the pan.
Encourage everyone to eat the dizi the authentic Iranian way. After you’ve drunk the soup, you could use a mortar and pestle, or just mash the meat and vegetables in your bowl with a fork. Scoop it all up with flatbread, then add herbs and onion and a squeeze of citrus juice — delicious!

Tags:: Malouf; Greg; Lucy; Middle; Eastern

Mortar and pestle soup with chickpeas, lamb and flatbread

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