Arabian Lamb Cakes - Maqlūa al-shiwā

I was recently able to do some demonstration cooking and this is a recipe I picked out as part of my repertoire.  However I never got around to it!  The ingredients all came home with me and I decided to make it for this blog.

It is originally out of one of my favorite books, Pleyn Delit, which makes it medieval.

ISBN 0-8020-7632-7

There was a lot of Arabic influence in the foods of this time.  The lamb cakes stand out as Arabic primarily because of the use of lamb, mint, nuts, and the spices combination.  This is recipe #5 in the book.

Arabian Lamb Cakes - Maqlūa al-shiwā

Original recipe

Take cold roast, and cut up fine with a knife, adding the usual seasonings, together with walnuts:  then proceed as for maqlūba, with eggs.  If desired sour, sprinkled with a little lemon juice.


Redacted version

1 1/2 cup pieces of cold roast lamb
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp coriander
1/8 tsp each ground cumin, cinnamon, pepper
2 tsp chopped fresh mint
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
olive oil for frying
juice of 1/2 lemon

Mix ingredients (not oil or lemon) and form small cakes.  Fry in oil, turning over once.  Sprinkle with lemon juice before serving hot.


My Notes

My lamb was purchased ground.  I cooked and drained it before using it (it was cold when I packed it to take to the demonstration).

I chopped the walnuts well, so no one would get a big chunk of nut in their lamb cake bite.

An original sized piece included for comparison.

First I mixed the meat, nuts, and all the seasonings together well.  Then I beat the egg before adding it to the mixture.

Pre-egg

Post-egg.  It looks moister.

I preheated the pan and the oil.  The first spoonful of the mixture was squeezed in my hand and set into the pan.  It immediately crumbled!

Definitely not a cake.

I decided the mixture was too dry so I added another beaten egg.  Now it looked very moist.

Downright soggy now.  The particles cling better, too.

I tried making the little cake shapes again.  I was very gentle in squeezing the mixture, in placing the cakes on the pan, and in turning them over once.

Cooking on the first side.

Cooking after turning.

Despite all that gentleness, nearly half of the cakes crumbled before being put on the serving platter.  Very disappointing!

I piled the whole cakes mostly on one side of the platter and the broken bits on the other.  Everything got a sprinkling of lemon juice.  I garnished the dish with two more pieces of lemon and a sprig of mint.

The Verdict

I served them with the Sweet-and-Sour Olives and some tortilla chips for crunch.

The chips were shy and avoided the photograph.

The lamb cakes that were whole were easy to pick up and eat but you realized quickly that they had to be handled gently or they would break apart.

The flavor was good:  mostly the lamb came through and the spices were very subtle.  I wanted more of a kick from the mint.  The nuts seemed slightly toasted from the cooking, which I liked.  The cakes weren't oily, which I appreciated.  The lemon juice is a necessary ingredient to add some sparkle to a somewhat bland dish.

So success on the flavor, although I wanted more of a dance on my taste buds.

As a finger food, it was a failure.  The cakes weren't robust enough to be finger food at all.  I ended up eating most of the cooked meat mixture with a spoon.

I suspect that the addition of some dried bread crumbs would help with that.  Perhaps if I make it another time, especially as a demonstration recipe, I would add some.

Side note:  the liquid that the olives came in was also very good on the lamb cakes!