Name: Spiced Lamb Lettuce Cups
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Lebanese
Ingredients: 600 g lamb mince, 20% fat; 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 large onion, finely diced; 4 garlic cloves, crushed; 2 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp ground coriander; ½ tsp ground cinnamon; 2 tsp Aleppo pepper; 1 ¼ tsp fine sea salt; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 2 tbsp lemon juice; 2 baby gem lettuces, leaves separated; ½ red onion, finely sliced; 2 tbsp red wine vinegar; 30 g pine nuts, toasted; 20 g flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 4 tbsp thick Greek yoghurt, to serve

Spiced Lamb Lettuce Cups

Lamb mince fried hard with cumin, cinnamon and Aleppo pepper, spooned into cold lettuce cups with pickled onion — 32 g of protein and 18 g of carbohydrate.

30 min total Serves 4 servings Easy

Mince steams instead of browning because the pan is crowded and the meat is stirred. Spreading it out and leaving it alone for four minutes gets a proper crust on the underside, and that crust is most of the flavour. The spices go in after the browning, not before, or they scorch in the time the meat needs.

The Method for Spiced Lamb Lettuce Cups

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Put the sliced red onion in the vinegar with a pinch of salt and leave it while you cook.
Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over high heat and add the lamb in one layer. Leave it 4 minutes without touching it.
Break it up, turn it and cook another 3 minutes until most of it has browned. Pour off the fat if there is more than a tablespoon.
Add the diced onion and cook 5 minutes over medium, scraping the browned bits off the base as it releases water.
Add the garlic, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, Aleppo pepper and salt and stir 1 minute until fragrant.
Stir in the tomato purée and fry 2 minutes until it darkens, then add the lemon juice and take it off the heat.
Spoon into cold lettuce leaves and top with the pickled onion, pine nuts, parsley and a little yoghurt.

Related guide: Ingredient substitutions.

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Tips That Matter

Leave the mince alone for the first four minutes. Stirring straight away is why home-cooked mince is grey.
Keep the lettuce in the fridge until the moment you serve. The contrast of cold crisp leaf against hot lamb is the dish.
20% fat mince, not lean. Lean lamb mince goes dry and grainy at this heat.

If You're Missing Something

An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Pairs Well With

A glass of Lebanese red · Cucumber and mint salad · Warm flatbread, for anyone not counting carbohydrate

Storage

Refrigerate the lamb up to 3 days and freeze 3 months. Assemble only what you are eating — leaves wilt within minutes of being filled. Reheat the lamb in a pan rather than a microwave to keep some crust.