I've never seen anything like this in my life.
Oh my lordy lord, look at that.
So basically the oven's in the floor, it's huge!
It's like another room.
That's a whole lamb.
A whole lamb, legs off though obviously.
Yes.
Takes about 40 to 50 lambs at once.
50 lambs at once?
Yeah, yeah.
I've gotta build myself one of these!
They got a big old lump of wood, like a spit, and then your main man here starts to uh...
mm!
So apparently the um...
this man keeps feeding me!
I'm not used to being fed by men.
Can I have one portion for me?
Cumin, salt... happy days.
Thank you Hussein, thank you.
Have a look at this.
Right, this is the Atlas Mountains.
Absolutely beautiful.
You know, how many places in the world where you can go from a palm tree on the top of
a roof to snow on the top of a mountain?
And what's beautiful about the name 'riad' - riad means little drop in paradise and because
they have inward-looking courtyards you know, down there you've got chaos, you've got scooters,
you've got horns going off, you know you've got donkeys going, there's absolute pandemonium.
And then in your riad it's a little drop of paradise, I just love that.
Beautiful, right let's cook.
So, I'm gonna be doing this mechoui lamb, 'mechoui' meaning roast.
If you look at these lamb shoulders here they're actually quite small, so they're obviously
killing them quite young, that's probably 6 months old unless it's a small breed or
something.
And then here we've got smen - now absolutely you can use ghee or some butter - smen is
basically a fermented butter and it's got a slightly cheesy fermented flavor to it,
which doesn't sound very appealing, but when you cook with it it gives it meatiness and
gives it a lovely sort of authentic hu.
Now once I've rubbed that all over I'm going to use some key spices here.
A little bit of cumin, and a little bit of coriander, ground, and then I've got here
some pounded up thyme and salt,
but you could use fresh thyme and salt no worries at all.
So I'm literally gonna rub that in all over, really give it the effort.
So I'm just gonna rub some rosemary into here.
Nice little handful, rosemary and lamb best friends as ever.
And some garlic just gonna smash it, and just crack them in your hand and just push them
on top of the lamb like that.
So what I'm gonna do is just get some tinfoil in there,
and then I'm gonna put a little swig of water in the bottom.
And then what I want to do is I'm gonna put this into an oven at full whack, immediately
turn it down to 180 degrees Celsius or about 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and for a shoulder
of lamb like this I'll cook it for about 2.5 hours, 2 hours, and for a normal English side
shoulder I'll cook it for about 3.5 - 4 hours or until it all pulls and it's delicious and
tender.
Right let's have a look at this beautiful stuff.
Okay, so you can see these little babies have shrunk back off the bone.
I'm just gonna take one whole shoulder and put it on a platter, and you can see when
the meat's cooked beautifully it'll just fall off the bone like that.
And I'm gonna pick this up, put this here.
So a whole roast shoulder but there's not a single ingredient apart from the smen - you
can use butter - you can make this at home and really get that authentic taste.
Now all I do to finish these beautiful lambs off is get some pomegranate, cut it in half,
hold your hand like that, get yourself a spoon or something, and put those lovely fresh capsules
of pomegranate over the top.
You know, that is going to be absolutely delicious, you know the little pops of sweetness with
that lovely pulled lamb, bit of spice.
And then I just want to show you how I love to serve it because for me this just makes
the whole thing a bit of a feast you know, and like you know if you look at the Moroccans
they like dipping and little bits of this and that and the other so I'm trying to kind
of do my version of that.
So I'm just reheating these flatbreads, 30 seconds you don't want them crispy, you want
it so they sort of bend like that, and then just like scrunch it up in your hand put it
there and then just fill it with some beautiful pulled lamb just like that.
And then what I want to do is just get a little bit of yogurt so it's nice and fresh.
Smear that across like that, then kind of make a well in the middle like that, and then
get some harissa now you can buy this everywhere but it's that salted lemon, chili little hit,
just dribble it over the middle like that.
And then go back to your spices and just put a pinch over again.
And it's kind of garnish but also it is freshness, it's definitely there for freshness.
Orange and carrot salads are a big thing out here.
Take a little wadge of it and just put it in like that.
Maybe a few pomegranates.
That is a beautiful dish.
The mechoui lamb I don't know what he'd make of that, but for me that's respecting the
way he's cooking, I'm doing it in my way I'm using local ingredients, little links like
the carrot and orange salad, and I'm really really proud of that, I want to eat that,
and I ain't sure which is the most pretty that, or that.
Nice chocolate, lovely bit of meat.
Chicken, tagine, fish, calamari, spinach, aubergines, chips...
This is the most crazy market you're ever gonna see.
Literally 2 hours ago there was nothing here, and at 5 o'clock... to be fair, they let all
the market-stall holders out and then they all race to uh, hello boys!
You alright?
Thing about this place is it's like an assault of all the senses, the smells, the noise,
but the food is incredible.
We've got the old lamb's head here either boiled or roasted, we've got two lovely girls
here and a big old tongue sitting there, lovely.
There's my boy look he just gave it a little dab.
The breast.
Wow!
I'm eating cow's udder at the moment.
So exciting, so much noise, so many smells, so many people, absolutely absolutely bonkers.
And somehow they're all shouting out Gordon Ramsay and Delia Smith!
Brilliant.
I gotta get out now 'cos too much of this will do me head in.