Last Thursday night, I was sitting on the grass chatting with my friends until midnight. Spring had come and the night was warm.
Now, it’s pouring with rain. I’m bundled up in my goosedown puffer jacket (sometimes called a ‘duvet jacket‘ or ‘fashion travesty’).
The good thing about the rain is that it helps me stay inside to read dozens of journal articles (oh my god, there are so many).
Damjan came to Cambridge this weekend and we happily did not much. A friend came over to cook Turkish lamb pilau with us, with strawberries for dessert. We also watched Iron Chef, Giant Lobster Battle. Iron Chef is the best.
Turkish Lamb Pilau
- 500 g lamb, chopped to mouthful size
- Small handful of pine nuts
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 2-3 cups rice (the recipe book says 250 g rice but I just added enough until it looked all right)
- 500 mL stock (I used chicken but lamb or vegetable is better, apparently)
- Handful of minut, chopped
- Some cinnamon (I shook the bottle three times. The recipe suggests two cinnamon sticks).
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Lightly fry pine nuts without oil. Remove from pan.
- Fry onion and cinnamon in oil until transparent.
- Add lamb. Fry until browned.
- Add rice. Fry for a minute. Add stock.
- Simmer with lid on for 15 minutes or until rice is soft. You might need to add more water.
- Mix in pine nuts and mint.
We served it with cherry tomatoes, grated cucumber in yogurt (‘tzatziki’), grated carrot in yogurt (‘carrot tzatziki’), and cloudy apple juice. We had stuffed olives too but I forgot to take them out of the fridge. More for me, then.