Méchoui (agneau rôti au cumin)

Name: Méchoui (agneau rôti au cumin)
Total time: 4 h 20 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Moroccan
Ingredients: 1.8 kg Épaule d'agneau; 80 g Butter or smen; 6 Garlic cloves; 2 tbsp (14 g) Ground cumin; 1 tbsp (7 g) Sweet paprika; 1 tsp Ground coriander; 30 ml Olive oil; 2 tsp Flaky salt; 250 ml Water

Épaule d'agneau enduite de beurre au cumin et à l'ail, rôtie lentement jusqu'à ce qu'elle s'effiloche.

Source

Recette de Moroccan home kitchens · 🏺 Traditionnel · Moroccan household cooking

Cuisine de fête maghrébine — Méchoui is a whole sheep or lamb spit-roasted in Maghrebi cuisine; the word comes from the Arabic šawā, 'to grill or roast'. It is a feast dish of North Africa, in Morocco and Algeria referring to a whole animal roasted slowly until meltingly tender and eaten with cumin and salt. There is no single author; this is festival cooking passed down rather than a written recipe.

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Étapes

Mash the softened butter with the garlic, 1 tbsp of the cumin, the paprika, ground coriander, 2 tsp salt and the oil into a thick paste.
Pat the lamb dry and rub the paste all over, pushing it into any slashes in the meat. Let it sit 30 minutes, or overnight in the fridge.
Heat the oven to 150°C. Sit the lamb on a rack over a tray, pour the water into the tray, and cover the whole thing tightly with foil.
💡 The water and the foil turn the oven into a gentle steam-roast. That is what keeps a four-hour roast from drying to string.
Roast covered for 3 hours, then remove the foil and roast 45–60 minutes more, basting with the tray juices, until deeply browned.
It is done when a fork twisted in the thickest part meets no resistance and the meat wants to fall from the bone.
💡 Mechoui is not carved into neat slices — it is meant to shred. If it still resists the fork, it simply needs longer; there is no overcooking a low, moist roast like this.
Rest 15 minutes. Serve pulled into chunks with small bowls of the cumin-salt for dipping and khobz alongside.

💡 Astuces

Traditionally mechoui is a whole lamb spit-roasted over embers for a feast, turned slowly for hours. A shoulder in a low home oven gives you the same falling-apart texture and cumin-scented crust without a pit in the ground.
The dipping salt is not an afterthought. In Morocco mechoui is eaten by hand, each piece dabbed into a mix of ground cumin and salt — that final seasoning at the table is part of the ritual.