Lamb En Croute

Have I mentioned that lamb is one of my favorite meats? So tasty and rich, the bold flavors let you do almost any thing to it. And of course I know you have all taken the time to check out my turduchen right? Right? so it should come as no surprise that I would take lamb make it North African spicy and hide it under a chickpea crust. I mean totally normal.

So let us start with the recipe for my
Lamb Mousse

3/4# ground lamb
4tbl quinoa (cooked)
2tbl roasted walnuts
1ea egg
2tsp orange liqueur
1 dried pepper
2tsp oregano
1tsp rosemary
1tsp salt
1tbl ground red lentils
1/2tsp cumin

For the dried pepper I used an ancho but you are welcome to play with what ever peppers you have (even minced fresh peppers won't hurt). Now the filling for this recipe is more like a mousse than a ground meat so we will be using the food processor. Place the lamb and spices into the food processor and turn it on (for the sake of this recipe the ground lentils are a spice.). Add  the egg, orange liquor, and walnuts puree until smooth remove the mixture and fold in the quinoa.Now cover the mixture set aside in a cool place and proceed to make the yummy crust.

Now about this fine crust, speaking of fine be sure to sift your chickpea flour, we don't want chunks here. OK so the crust developed out of my thought of making cream puffs. But I wanted to be gluten free so that a certain someone could eat these yummy treats. So this is a simple Pate Choux dough only we will be tagging in Chickpea flour.

Chickpea Pate Choux

1cup water
2tbl butter
1tbl coconut milk
3/4cup chickpea flour
1tsp zatar
1tsp curry powder
1tsp garam masala
4 eggs

To start place the first four ingredients in a pan on the stove and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and quickly whisk in the flour (you remembered to sift that right?). Keep stirring until it gets thick and goopy. Now place the thick mixture in a stand mixer and add the spices. (side note here after making this and tasting it I would use 2tbl of anyone of the spices instead of 1tsp of each.) While the mixer is running. on high of course, add the eggs one at a time. Let each egg be fully incorporated be fore adding the next.  We now have our dough.

To prepare the Lamb in Croute is now fairly  simple and straight forward. First though I would highly recommend a silicone muffin pan for this. Even my well greased non-stick muffin tin did not approve of  non-sticking. So preheat your oven to 425f. Place enough of the dough mixture into each muffin cup to just fill the bottom. Cook these for about 5-10 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top. Now take your meat mousse mixture and place a ball a little smaller than a golf ball in the center of each muffin. Then add a small amount of the chickpea batter over each. just enough to cover. Place these back in the oven and cook until golden brown.

These are wonderful topped with a sauce of roasted red bell peppers and eggplant. The saucy recipe will be occurring over here ----->>>