Tava

I'd never heard of it before. Sounds a bit exotic, but it's really Cypriot home cooking. One big baking dish of meat and potatoes! Cooking tonight from Falling Cloudberries, of all of Tessa Kiros's books it's the most romantically named for me.

Divinely easy to bring together too, and pop it in the oven and forget about it for a couple of hours. The recipe gives the option of diced lamb, or lamb on the bone. There is a photo accompanying the recipe and it looks like the lamb is cutlets. A costly cut for me. I went with a slightly better value option, but still on the bone. The Lamb Loin Chop, think T-Bone in miniature. Perfect for this dish. It's not the leanest cut, but they were trimmed quite well, while still retaining their 'tails' as we know them - the little flap of fat and meat. You could trim this of course, but it really is quite delicious so naturally I left well enough alone.

One-pot cooking, so hard to beat. On busy days around the house, a dish like this is such a handy option. So easy:

Tava (Cypriot Baked Lamb and Potatoes with Cumin and Tomatoes)

2 red onions, cut in half and then each half into four half moons)
1.2 kg potatoes cut into large chunks
1 kg lamb cut into chunks, or about 12 lamb loin chops
4 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley, plus extra for garnish
3 heaped tsp cumin seeds
salt
pepper
125ml olive oil
4 or 5 ripe tomatoes cut into thick slices
50g butter
125ml water

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Toss together the onions, potatoes, lamb, parsley, cumin seeds, salt, pepper and olive oil in a large baking dish (about 2.5 litre capacity). Put the sliced tomatoes, in a single layer over the top of the meat and vegetables. Pour the water down the side of the dish and dob the butter here and there over the tomatoes. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a little more salt.

Cover the dish with foil, and, if you are like me, you will first use a layer of baking paper. Put this in the oven and forget about it for 2 hours.

Uncover the dish, and tip the dish to one side and spoon some of the juices over the tomatoes and vegetables. Bump up the oven temperature to 200C.

Put the dish back in the oven, and bake for about 20 minutes, check it, and turn it about to help brown the meat and potatoes - the tomatoes will have shrunk down and intensified in flavour somewhat. Put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes or so.

Remove from oven, sprinkle over some parsley and serve warm with a light salad (I just dressed it with lemon juice) and bread if desired.

Serves 6

Placing the tomatoes over the meat and already beautifully golden potatoes.