Lamb and Orange Khoresh | Diana Henry

Khoresht are Persian stews, though the Persians think of them as ‘sauces’ to dress big bowls of plain white rice. Made with meat, fish or vegetables and usually containing large amounts of herbs or fruits, they’re often sour, or at least soursweet, using lemon juice, powdered dried limes, tamarind or pomegranates to achieve this characteristic taste. 

Serves 6 

INGREDIENTS 

• 3 oranges
• 40g unsalted butter
• 2 teaspoons caster sugar
• olive oil
• 675g lamb from the leg, cut into 3–4cm cubes
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• seeds from 3 cardamom pods, ground
• 275ml orange juice
• juice of 1 lime
• 275ml lamb stock or water
• 3 carrots
• good handful of mint leaves, torn
• 2 teaspoons orange flower water
• 25g shelled pistachios, roughly chopped or slivered
• sea salt flakes and freshly ground
• black pepper

METHOD

1. Remove the zest from the oranges with a vegetable peeler, taking care to leave the pith behind, and cut it into fine strips about the size of a match.
2. Cover with cold water in a saucepan, bring to the boil, cook for 2 minutes, then strain.
3. Heat half the butter in a small pan and add the orange zest. Stir, add the sugar and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes, until the sugar has melted and the zest lightly caramelized. Set aside.
4. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a heavy-based casserole.
5. Dry the lamb with kitchen paper and fry the cubes over a fairly high heat, so they get a good browning, working in batches so they get properly coloured. Set aside.
6. Add another 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan with the rest of the butter. Heat this and saute the onions until soft and translucent. Sprinkle on the cinnamon and cardamom and cook for another minute. Add the orange and lime juices, stock or water and return the lamb, with any juices that have run out of it. Season and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook over a very low heat for 1.5 hours.
7. Peel the carrots and cut them into fine strips, about 6cm long.
8. Using a very sharp knife, remove the white pith from each of the oranges you zested at the start, then, cutting close to the membrane, remove each segment.
9. Add the carrots to the lamb for the last 20 minutes of cooking time and the orange segments and strips of zest for the last 10 minutes.
10. Gently stir in half the mint during the last couple of minutes.
11. Stir the orange flower water into the khoresh and either turn it into a heated bowl or serve it in the pot in which it has been cooked, scattered with the rest of the mint and the pistachios. It doesn’t need a fussy accompaniment; just serve it with plain white rice, as in Iran.

Extracted from Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry, published by Aster, £26, photographs by Jason Lowe.