Lamb is the most frequent Easter main dish in France, and I usually make it in some way or shape for the holiday. This year I tried out a new lamb form: "Souris d'agneau au romarin, poivrades, citron et sésame."
You may well ask "what is a souris d'agneau?" My fifteen-year-old daughter certainly did, fearing some sort of relationship to mice. I haven't found a translation for the term, so I'm pretty much counting on another American in France to do so. But after seeing many recipes for this lamb cut over the years, I can finally at least describe it: the narrow, gelatinous, end of a leg of lamb.
Let me tell you that the hardest thing about this recipe is finding six souris. I truly wanted to order them from my local butcher, but he told me he could never "ruin six legs of lamb just to give me the end pieces." He did offer to sell me one -- fair enough, but not enough.
So, as was suggested in the recipe, I was reduced to buying my souris frozen from Picard -- which was rather a sad state of affairs considering all of the excellent lamb here in Aveyron. But so be it -- the frozen New Zealand souris actually did the trick quite nicely.
First, I marinated them a bit in a sauce of sesame seeds, honey, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme -- I couldn't find any rosemary, this isn't Provence -- at least not yet:
After marinating the meat for about an hour, I put it in a Dutch oven and covered it with thinly-sliced lemon.
I baked the dish in a medium-high oven for an hour before adding precooked "artichauts poivrade," or baby artichokes, for a half hour more at a slightly lower temperature.
You can see the delicious result at the top of the post.
This recipe was a real winner and was taken from the March-April 2007 issue of Elle à table, as were the other dishes for my Easter menu.
Come back this weekend for dessert!
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