Lamb Medallions with Fizzled Onions

Hello all, here is part II of dinner from the other night, the recipe for Middle Eastern Ground Lamb Medallions. They are similar to their culinary cousin, the Adana Kebab, previously featured here. However, these medallions feature ingredients that provide more of a sweet note that picks up on the subtle flavoring of ground lamb. The secret: ground pistachios. Funnily enough, these nuts are enjoying a bit of a renaissance thanks to these somewhat ridiculous commercials hitting airways across the country. Seriously, they couldn’t do better than Levi Johnston?

But I digress. I first sampled ground lamb with pistachios a few weeks ago at Zoe, a wonderful restaurant in Soho. They were served as sliders with a smooth tzatziki sauce. Yum! In making them at home, I decided to skip the bread and instead serve them with the Kamut Harvest Salad I blogged about a few days ago. The combination was deadly delicious. The hint of pistachio and cinnamon in the medallions played off the tart craisins and pomegranate molasses in the salad. Simple fizzled onions added a bit of extra color and sweet/savory flavor to the dish. These aren’t replicas of what you will find at Zoe, but I think that you MIGHT actually find these to be even better! Enjoy!

Middle Eastern Ground Lamb Medallions with Fizzled Onions

Inspired by Zoe Restaurant in NY, but the recipe is an original

This made about 18 medallions, with 2-3 per portion

Ingredients

2 lbs ground lamb

1/4 cup of ground pistachios (I took a handful of pistachios and ground them in my mini food-prep)

1 large egg

1-2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 pinch nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon or so of allspice

1-2 teaspoons cumin

2 small red onions sliced into thin half-moons

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Instructions:

1. In a non-stick skillet, heat olive oil over medium and add onions to slowly begin carmelizing

Onions at the Beginning of Cooking

Fizzled and Ready to Serve

2. While the onions are cooking, in a large bowl, liberally salt and pepper the lamb and then add the other spices. If you don’t like a lot of spice, ease up on the amounts I listed. But I think they pack a fabulous punch as written.

3. Heat a large skillet or grill pan over high or medium-high heat

4. Form 18-20 small burgers with the lamb

Formed Medallions Before Grilling

5. You are going to cook the lamb medallions in two batches (3 if using a smaller pan), so space out and cook for 2.5-3 minutes per side. I like medium rare, so I grilled them for 2.5 minutes per side.

6. The onions should be well done by the time you are finished cooking both batches of lamb medallions, so place a small portion of onions over each one of the medallions and serve. Again, I cannot stress how good these lamb medallions and onions are with kamut salad, so try it!

Served with Kamut Harvest Salad

Advertisement