Lamb Steak

Lamb steaks are cut from the leg or the shoulder, rubbed with garlic, chilli and herbs, and roasted on a rack. The source names no country, though it observes that lamb is eaten widely across Africa, and the bouillon cube in the rub is a West African marker rather than a European one. Lamb has an unusually long documented history: sheep were first raised in the Middle East around nine thousand years ago, and lamb is central to cooking across North Africa, the Sahel and the Horn. Moroccan mechoui, Algerian mtewem, Senegalese dibi and Ethiopian tibs are all built on it, and each is a distinct dish this recipe is not. What lamb tastes of is worth knowing if you have not eaten much of it. It is sharper, earthier and slightly gamier than beef, and that comes from branched-chain fatty acids that beef does not have. Diet affects flavour as it does with beef. Most cuts are naturally tender, so very little needs doing to them, and the source's own advice is the important part: cooked to rare or medium-rare it is soft and excellent, and beyond that it toughens. The rub needs four hours in the fridge.