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It’s a busy week for spring holidays! Thursday kicked off Passover, Easter is this Sunday and there’s Portland Holi festival this weekend to drench you in the colors of the season.
It’s not every year that these moving feasts give one another such a narrow berth, but when they’re all side by side like this, you see how many similarities they share — so many springtime rites toddled from the same cradle of civilization, after all. Incredibly, the foods that originated in the Fertile Crescent tens of thousands of years ago are still central to the way spring is celebrated throughout the region today. Even now, traditional holiday dishes usher in the season of new beginnings with symbolic foods like lamb, eggs and wheat.
When people talk about “ancient grains,” they’re usually thinking of farro — the name for hulled emmer, einkorn, or spelt, which are all types of wheat. These grains have tough hulls that remain after threshing, which is why farro is usually eaten in less-processed forms like pilafs and salads (the grains require more processing before they can be milled into flour).
Wild einkorn still grows in the hills of the Fertile Crescent, and because it can handle such crummy soils, it was used to breed the durum variety of wheat that’s more dominant today (though Oregon wheat farmers primarily grow hard red winter and soft white types). Some traditional spring holiday dishes, like the Italian Easter dessert pastiera Napoletana, specifically use whole wheat berries, while unripe, green wheat berries and freekeh (roasted green wheat) have been part of Levantine spring rites for millennia.
This week’s recipe is a jaunt through history, time-traveling to meet its ancient foodway ancestors. Lamb shanks are braised with aromatics for hours, until unctuous and melting off the bone, and the nutty, chewy farro cooks in the braising liquid with dried rosebuds and barberries — ingredients with wild progenitors in both the Fertile Crescent and the Pacific Northwest. I also used cinnamon leaf, an aromatic cousin of our local gal, myrtle.
Speaking of Northwest native plants, Oregon grape may be the official flower of the Beaver State, but it isn’t a grape at all — it’s a type of barberry. Dried barberries (called zereshk throughout the Middle East) don’t seem to get their propers around here, but they’re a Persian pantry staple, bringing tiny sparks of acid to pilafs, salads and stews. Serves 4-6
Note: If you don’t have a supply of Oregon grape berries that you just happened to wildcraft and dry last summer (💅), you can find zereshk in Middle Eastern and international markets or online, or substitute dried cranberries. If you don’t have cinnamon leaf or California bay/myrtle, use a small piece of cinnamon stick instead. Look for dried rose buds at herb and tea shops. Dried limes are also sold in Middle Eastern markets, but I tend to overbuy limes and then forget to use them before they get dry and leathery so I always have a stash on hand.
You can make a really nice vegetarian version of this dish with cooked garbanzos and roasted eggplant instead of lamb.
Ingredients
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 meaty lamb shanks (around 3 pounds total)
Salt and pepper
3 shallots or 1 small red onion, peeled and halved lengthwise
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 cup dry farro (or any type of whole wheat berries)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
4 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
2 tablespoons fig, grape or pomegranate molasses (or other pekmez) or honey
2 cinnamon leaves
2 bay leaves
1 dried lime, broken in half (optional)
3 tablespoons dried Oregon grape berries or zereshk (dried barberries)
2 tablespoons dried rosebuds, crushed (remove and discard any stems or woody rose hips)
1 bunch thyme (4 or 5 sprigs)
4 or 5 large carrots, scrubbed and cut into 2-inch lengths
Fresh mint, parsley, and/or dill, chopped for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Pat the lamb shanks dry with a paper towel and season them generously with salt and pepper. Add the shanks, shallots and garlic to the pot and cook, turning every few minutes, until the lamb is browned evenly. Remove the shanks with tongs and set aside.
- Add the farro to the pot, stir to coat in the hot fat and cook for a minute or two until the grains are lightly toasted. Stir in the cumin, coriander and cardamom, then add the chicken broth, stirring to dissolve the browned bits. Add the remaining ingredients (except the fresh herbs) and return the lamb shanks to the pot.
- Add a few generous pinches of salt and pepper and enough water to reach the top of the lamb shanks. Increase the heat, bring to a boil, then cover and slide the pot into the oven. Cook until the lamb is falling-apart tender and the farro is chewy, about 2 hours.
- Remove the bones and break up the meat, remove the cinnamon and bay leaves and dried lime, and add more salt and pepper if needed. (If the grains have soaked up all the liquid, you can stir in some more broth or water as needed.) Serve with lots of fresh herbs.