That lucky dip - lamb and Greg Malouf

"In some ways, the name of the recipe builds a level of excitement and expectation of the dish that can improve the experience of enjoying it ..." DanM/eGForums ... " Or, more likely set you up for disappointment" Moopheus/eGForums

This is one of the beautiful drawings from the River Cottage A-Z book. Michael Frith is the artist. This one is particularly appealing. So much so that it could turn you into a vegetarian immediately. It also suddenly reminded me of an occasion when my toddler older son asked, as he was about to eat his dinner. "What animal is this mum?", which gave me a moment's pause. And indeed we eat far less meat than we used to these days.

But this is not about turning vegetarian. It's that lucky dip that has had me stalled for a bit. The book is Arabesque by Greg and Lucy Malouf, which like River Cottage A-Z is arranged alphabetically by ingredient, but in Greg Malouf's case, concentrating on the food of the Middle-East. There are a few photographs but not many, so mostly it is left to your imagination as to what the dish might look like.

Now Greg Malouf is a wonderful chef - before he was really famous we ate at his restaurant in Albert Park - or thereabouts and it was indeed truly memorable - O'Connell's?. Which makes me remember that we have also dined at early (and in some cases later) venues of the big names of today - Shannon Bennett, Stephanie Alexander, Philippe Mouchel, Guy Grossi, Andrew McConnell ... which is just a passing thought and nothing to do with the topic in hand.

Which is Sticky lamb shank soup with fresh fenugreek and molten mozzarella. I have scanned it here because it's a bit long to type out, and nobody seems to have tried it, and neither his publishers, or Malouf himself, have put the recipe online. I scanned the net for pictures and found numerous lamb shank soups - Morocco seems to be big on lamb shank soups, but none of them like this one - which I guess demonstrates how original a cook he is. Most of the soups that I found included some kind of legume - as many Middle-Eastern soups do, but none of them included mozzarella or sherry. Well mozzarella is Italian and sherry is Spanish and I also suspect that fenugreek - fresh and seeds - is more used in India than in the Middle-East. So it's a bit of multicultural dish.

A couple of words about the title. Whilst I was looking for inspiration re writer's block yesterday I, of course, came across lots of advice as to how to overcome it, and one of the more fun pieces of advice for food writers was to write about one's 10 favourite food words. And indeed, when next I'm stuck I might start on that. But it struck me that this particular recipe title includes three -'sticky', 'fresh' and 'molten', two of which, when I read through the recipe are a bit of a cheat.

"Sticky'. Sticky is a term that is often used when referring to things like barbecued or baked ribs and chicken wings. Something like these lamb shanks in a Donna Hay recipe for Orange and maple-braised lamb shanks with mint sauce which do indeed look gloriously sticky. It's not generally a word that you would apply to soup however. Indeed the only soups I found with the word sticky attached referred almost exclusively to the sticky rice which was included in the soup.

So why 'sticky' lamb shank soup? Is it the lamb shanks that are 'sticky' or the soup? And surely soup by definition cannot be sticky?

I have now read through the recipe and find that the lamb shanks are certainly browned before they go into the soup but then they are cooked in the broth with those initial general flavours that we all know - onions, celery, carrots, leek and garlic and a bag of spices - (fenugreek, cumin cinnamon and allspice) for a long time in the oven. Which I don't think would make them sticky. Then you sieve it all, pushing the seasoning vegetables down to extract as much goodness as possible before throwing them away, and shredding the meat. Then you cook some root vegetables - potatoes, pumpkin turnips in the broth before straining again but this time you keep the vegetables with the now shredded meat. Boil down the broth, return the vegetables and meat, add some coriander leaves and serve, topping with slices of mozzarella and fresh fenugreek.

I see no 'stickiness' anywhere but 'sticky' is a great marketing word to use is it not? Particularly when you have no picture to tell you that there is no stickiness. One is almost tempted to make the soup just to find out how on earth they could have thought that 'sticky' was an appropriate word to use.

'Fresh'. Actually in this case 'fresh fenugreek', so 'fresh' is actually a technical descriptor rather than an emotional thing here. 'Fresh' is generally used to denote healthy and natural doesn't it? In this case it's just telling you that you want the green leaves not the seeds - although those are in the spice bag. Fresh fenugreek is actually a bit hard to find unless you have an Asian supermarket somewhere near you - and this being Australia - you may well have. I did actually buy a bunch once in the Queen Victoria Market and I would have to say that I was somewhat disappointed with it as it didn't have much of a taste. Well that's what I thought anyway. In this recipe you sprinkle the leaves from a bunch over the top of the soup - which would be rather a lot, although I now see that the recipe serves 10 so for that many it maybe would just be a mild sprinkle on top. So it's a bit misleading to feature it so heavily in the title.

'Molten' 'Molten' goes with 'sticky' in a way and it also denotes heat I guess. 'Molten mozzarella' is in fact the usage here. And we do all know that mozzarella melts and goes stringy. Maybe it is indeed the 'molten mozzarella' that makes the soup 'sticky'. But does mozzarella melt that quickly? Maybe it does, particularly if you stir it into the hot broth below.

It's certainly an interesting mix of flavours from here and there. Will I be trying it out? I suspect not because it's a bit of a faff and although a little intrigued I'm not that intrigued. I wonder if those evocative descriptors were chosen because there was no picture and they thought that they might tempt you. But then again it's Greg Malouf whom I hold in very high regard. Maybe next time I come across a bunch of fresh fenugreek. Madhur Jaffrey likes it too.

And maybe I will think about favourite food words to ramble around some time.

Now I'm just curious as to what the next lucky dip might turn up.