Mediterranean winter

It's been a hard winter and we've had our usual round of beef stew, chili, sauce bolognese, pork roast and other wintry comfort food. But not every day in the Mediterranean is hot and sunny and these countries have their own winter dishes that have helped keep us warm.

Stewy lamb is a good start. I dusted off our tagine and made Ghillie Basan's lamb tagine with shallots and dates. Lamb shoulder is hard to find so I used butterflied leg of lamb, a small piece that provided just the 1-1/2 pounds called for in the recipe. After browning the lamb, and then the 12 peeled shallots and 4 to 6 garlic cloves, you add turmeric and cinnamon sticks, put the lamb back in and cover with water. Evidently, Basan's tagine is smaller than mine, because when I put in water to cover, it comes out too watery, even after 1-1/2 hours of cooking. The dates and honey go in after the first hour, and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds finishes it off at the end.

Although it has some of the same ingredients, we moved on the same week to Ottolenghi's lamb meatballs with barberries, yogurt and herbs. Whole Foods now apparently grinds its lamb shoulder so that fresh ground lamb is available, and it made these meatballs -- which also have onion, parsley, garlic, cinnamon, allspice, barberries, salt, pepper and egg -- very tasty. After browning the meatballs, you then saute shallots (again!), add wine, stock, bay leaves, thyme, figs and sugar, place the meatballs back in and simmer for 1-1/2 hours, uncovering it after 30 minutes. Garnish with Greek yogurt and chopped herbs (cilantro, mint, dill, tarragon).

Both dishes were very warming, with the meatballs clearly ahead in the flavor department. We actually threw leftovers from both dishes together and served that over couscous -- lamb, figs, dates, shallots galore.

For my solo fish dinner this week, I went to Claudia Roden's The Food of Spain and found an easy recipe for the monkfish that looked good to me at the Fishery. This called simply for caramelizing an onion and then sauteeing the monkfish in the pan. At the end, you light some rum and flambee the fish. Monkfish has this lobster-like texture and sweet flavor that I like, so this worked perfectly. I got used to the fish in France under its much more appealing French name, lotte (also more appealing than the Spanish rape), where it often appeared on menus. It is easy and cheaper than a lot of other fish.

The Roden recipe was very nice and since Whole Foods had frozen pheasant this week, presumably farmed, I'm looking forward to using her recipe for pheasant with apples. More on that another time.