Thank you to the winner of the 2017 Shetland Cooking Challenge, Susan Msalila, for kindly sharing her winning recipes with us.

Check out November’s Shetland Life to read Susan’s account of winning the competition (she also shares a recipe for beetroot and crab samosas).

Here’s a recipe which makes the most of delicious Shetland lamb.

Lamb and orange khoresh (Diane Henry)

Ingredients

3 oranges
40 g butter
2 tsp caster sugar
olive oil
675 g lamb from the leg, cut into 2 cm cubes
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
275 ml orange juice
Juice of 1 lime
275 ml lamb stock or water
salt and pepper
3 carrots
good handful of mint leaves, torn
2 tsp orange flower water (optional)
25 g shelled pistachios, roughly chopped, to garnish

Method

1 Remove peel (no pith) from the oranges with a vegetable peeler, and cut into fine strips about the size of a match. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, cook for 2 mins, then strain. Heat half the butter in a small pan and add the orange rind. Stir, then add the sugar and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes, until the sugar has melted and the rind has lightly caramelized. Set aside.

2 Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Fry the lamb cubes over fairly high heat, so that they get a good browning on the outside. You should do this in batches to ensure that they get properly coloured. Remove and set the lamb aside.

3 Add another 1 tbsp of olive oil to the pan with the rest of the butter. Fry the onion until soft and translucent. Sprinkle on the cinnamon and cardamom and cook for another minute. Add the juices, stock and water, and the lamb, with any juices that have run out of it. Season, and simmer gently for about 1 hour, or until tender.

4 Peel the carrots and cut them into batons about 6 cm long. Remove the white pith from the oranges then, cutting close to the membrane, remove each segment. Add the carrots and caramelized orange peel (reserving a little for garnishing) to the lamb once it is tender. Simmer, uncovered, for a further 10 min, adding the orange segments in the last few min with half of the mint.

5 Stir the orange flower water, if using, into the khoresh and serve, scattered with the remaining mint and orange peel and the pistachios

Couscous

200 g couscous
250 ml stock
25g butter
25 g dried apricots
25g dried cranberries
Selection of fresh vegetables, cut into small pieces – I used courgette, rainbow chard leaves and stalks

Chop the apricots into cranberry-sized pieces, and soak together with the cranberries in enough orange juice to cover them.  If you have time, leave them for several hours to plump up, if you haven’t then give them a short blast in the microwave to hurry them up.

Put the stock in a pan and bring to the boil.  Add the butter and the couscous, cover and turn off the heat.  After about 10 minutes stir with a fork to break up any clumps, and add the vegetables, apricots and cranberries (drained of excess orange juice).  Check the seasoning, add salt if required.  Leave another 10 minutes, on a very low heat for part of the time if it seems to have cooled too much.  Serve with the lamb.

Labneh

This really needs to be made ahead of time, although if you only start it when you start cooking the lamb it will have thickened up somewhat.

Put 500g of natural yoghurt (Greek style is best) in a cloth lined sieve (something like a j-cloth, or muslin square).  Pull up the corners of the cloth so the yoghurt is enclosed, tie the top, and hang it from a cupboard door handle or other convenient place where it can drip into a bowl for a couple of hours.  Once it is thick enough – you are looking to get about 200ml of liquid dripped out – take it out of the cloth, mix in some salt and 1 – 2 mashed garlic cloves, to taste.  The flavours will develop as it stands, so better to start under seasoned and adjust.  Serve really cold.  This will keep in the fridge for days, and is great as a healthy alternative to mayonnaise on all sorts of things.

Roast Tomatoes

If you can’t get the sweet soy sauce, you could substitute with ordinary soy sauce mixed with brown sugar.

Ingredients

400 g of tomatoes, either halved, quartered, or cut into 6 depending on how big they are.  You want to end up with something about bite size.
2 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce (also called Kecap Manis)
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt to taste

Method

Put the tomatoes cut side up in a shallow casserole dish, in a single layer.  Sprinkle on the other ingredients.  Cook at 180 C for 45 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and the sauce has amalgamated and thickened up a little.  Serve at room temperature.