Lamb, Effing Lamb...

Lamb, I discovered, doesn't act like pork. I saw the bone and the fat cap and thought, "Oh, I know what to do with this!" I can make a mean pork shoulder, loaded with melty garlic cloves, a crusty salty outside and delicious falling-apart pork on the inside.

Lamb isn't pork, and it was on the dry side. Don't do what I did. I stuck it in the oven at 230 degrees for a long time. Use a slow cooker.

Here's the spice rub I used:

Thyme - dried
Smoked sea salt
Cumin - I ground it myself from whole cumin seeds
Vietnamese Cinnamon - from Penzy's
Black Pepper
Coriander - Which I also ground myself

Now, cumin will tend to take over a blend like this if you're not careful. So it'll be like equal parts cumin, thyme and coriander, a little less black pepper, a little less salt, and REALLY easy on the cinnamon (the Vietnamese type is super bright and spicy). You don't want it to taste like Christmas.

If I could do it over again, I'll stick that beautiful lamb leg in a slow cooker for like ten hours with all those spices, a splash of water, a quartered onion and a bunch of garlic cloves.

Leg of lamb will yield a lot of fat, so you'll need to skim the muck and stuff out.

For the couscous, I used Israeli couscous with saffron, cayenne and all the garlic cloves that got all soft in the lamb fat.