LAMB WITH HARISSA AND COUSCOUS SALAD

This is my take on a pair of recipes in this month's Good Housekeeping.  The recipes are for "harissa lamb with bulgur wheat" but, as you cannot get anything resembling a British lamb chop here and I've never been able to find bulgur wheat, I changed them quite a bit.

Instead of bulger wheat, I used couscous, as I do when making tabbouleh, and I decided that I wanted to serve the salad cold.  Here's what I did:

Cover 8 oz couscous with cold water. let it absorb, then repeat the process.  Then let the couscous chill in a serving bowl in the fridge.  Meanwhile, chop a couple of tomatoes - you can skin and deseed them if you like, but I didn't.  Add them to the couscous.  Chop two or three fresh apricots - again, you can skin them if you want - and add these, too.  In a processor chop a good handful of mint leaves, a red pepper and a small onion and add these to the couscous mixture.  Now mix everything well, season the salad and add 6 tablesp olive oil, the juice of a lemon and a little dried oregano.  Mix again and put the salad back in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.

I asked the butcher to cut a kilo of  bone-in lamb as thickly as he could.  I rubbed the lamb on both sides with some harissa, which is available here.  I'm not telling you how much to use as that depends on how hot you like your spicy food.  I like mine good and hot!  Then I heated 4 tablesp olive oil in a pan, chucked in some cumin seeds and then cooked the lamb in the oil for about 12 minutes, turning often. 

As soon as the lamb was ready, I served it with the salad, a combination which worked well.

These quantities would serve 4.