Lamb and labneh:
Once you’ve had labneh alongside roasted meat, you’ll never want to do without it, said Clare Lattin and Tom Hill in Ducksoup: The Wisdom of Simple Cooking (Chronicle Books). At our restaurant in London, labneh appears again and again on the menu, because the strained salted yogurt—“a kind of yogurt cheese”—is so versatile and so easy to make and store.
The recipe below was inspired by the meal that provided Clare’s true introduction to labneh—an outdoor feast in a stunning Syrian vineyard where roasted lamb was served with labneh and poached fruit. The lamb can be cooked either on a grill, as it was in the vineyard, or indoors, as detailed in the instructions below. The labneh needs to be made in advance, but you’ll want some in your refrigerator to serve alongside lots of other dishes. Besides, it’s “just delicious spread on crusty sourdough with fresh herbs and lashings of a good extra-virgin olive oil.” Salt and freshly ground black pepper 8 fresh apricots (or other stone fruit),
unpitted A few thyme leaves ¾ cup labneh (see below) Juice of 1 lemon
Preheat oven to 400. Heat large grill pan until smoking. Rub lamb with oil; season with salt and pepper. Place in grill pan and cook 5 minutes on one side. (You may need to turn heat down; there will be a lot of smoke.) Turn lamb over and cook 5 minutes on other side. Using tongs, turn meat onto its side and cook edges 3 minutes