Guest Post: Persian Spiced Lamb with Salad Shirazi

Hello to all you lovely Paleo in PDX readers! I am super excited to be guest posting here for Alisa! To be honest I can’t recall 100% how Alisa and I crossed paths, but I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with both our love for all things paleo and health related. The fact that she creates amazing recipes didn’t hurt either.

Even though we have never met in person, I consider Alisa a good friend. She is an awesome person and always supporting my blog, which I am very grateful for. Who knows, maybe one day we will meet up in person! If you ask my husband, Joe, I’ve always wanted to visit Portland — it’s been on my list of places to go for a long time, but just hasn’t happened…. yet! Like I said, who knows!

Okay, let me tell you a bit about this recipe I’m about to share with you. When Alisa and I got to talking about guest posting, she asked if I would create a recipe using lamb. I was happy to oblige since I grew up eating lamb and feel comfortable cooking it.  I decided to create a Persian inspired recipe here since my background is Persian, but I kept it pretty simple.

The spice mix I used here for the lamb is a staple in Persian cooking and the salad I paired it with is a classic from the city of Shiraz and is great on a hot summer’s day!

Feel free to increase the ratios of these recipes to suit your needs. What I have listed here is enough for 2-3 people, depending on how hungry you are.

Cheers and enjoy!

Persian Spiced Lamb with Salad Shirazi

Ingredients for the lamb:

• 6 individual lamb rib chops
• *1-2 tsp Advieh spice mix
• 1/4 cup avocado oil
• Sea salt to taste

*For the advieh spice mix:

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground rose petals, optional
• 1 tsp ground cardamon
• ½ tsp ground cumin

Mix all together and store in an airtight glass container.

Ingredients for the salad:
Note: The salad should be made BEFORE the lamb as it needs to sit in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

• 2 large cucumbers (~1 lb)
• 2 medium red bell peppers or 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 small red onion
• ½ – 1 Tbsp dried mint
• ¼ cup fresh lime or lemon juice
• Sea salt to taste
• Freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Method for the lamb:

1. Heat a griddle pan on medium-high heat.
2. While the pan is heating up place your lamb rib chops onto a chopping board and season both sides with some sea salt.
3. Take your advieh spice mix and sprinkle some of the mixture on both sides of the cutlets. Using your hands rub the mixture into both sides of the lamb.
4. Brush both sides of each piece of lamb with some avocado oil and place in batches onto the now hot griddle pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes per side depending on how you like your meat.
5. Remove after each batch to a clean plate and cover to keep warm.

Method for the salad:

1. For this salad you need to basically deseed and dice the cucumber, deseed and dice the bell peppers/tomatoes and dice the red onion into small equal pieces.
2. Start off with the cucumber, deseed and dice into small pieces. Next dice the onion into small pieces .
3. Deseed and dice either the bell peppers or tomatoes, depending on which one you’re using. If you’re using tomatoes leave these for last to cut up since they’ll leave your chopping board wet and you’ll have to wipe it down to cut the other veggies.
4. Place everything into a mixing bowl and mix well. I always leave the onion to put in last just because I might not always use the whole thing, it depends on how much you want in there, but one small onion should be fine here.
5. Toss everything to mix then add in your dried mint and season with S&P. Taste to test for seasoning.
6. Mix again, cover and set in the fridge for 15-20 mins.
7. After that time remove the salad from the fridge and pour over your lime or lemon juice, mix well, cover again and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour before serving.

Nazanin or Naz as her friends and family like to call her is an Australian expat. She left Australia in 2011 with her husband Joe to move to Michigan, U.S.A where they stayed for just under 2 years. They now currently reside in England, United Kingdom.  Naz started her journey to paleo eating in 2011 and now runs her own paleo based food blog at cinnamoneats.com. She loves to create delicious paleo recipes to share with others. You can also connect with Naz via her Facebook Page, her Instagram or her Twitter.