The Slavic east and the Balkans · Volume 29, Bura, Smoke and the Ottoman Line

Tavë Kosi

Name: Tavë Kosi
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: Serves 4 to 6
Cuisine: The Adriatic and Albania
Ingredients: 1.5 kg lamb, bone-in, cut into pieces; to taste salt; 500 g full-fat strained yoghurt; 3 eggs; 2 tbsp plain flour; 2 tbsp butter, melted, plus extra for the top

Albania

Tavë kosi, baked lamb under a golden yoghurt custard: a shallow round baking dish with a deep golden-brown, softly puffed custard top, cracked slightly in places to reveal tender pale lamb beneath.

Illustration

Time: 2 hours 30

Researched: 14 sources cited

by Albania

Ottoman conquest of Albania proceeds through the fifteenth century, and Albania remained under direct Ottoman administration into the twentieth, until independence in 1912. Albanian-language sources state the depth of this plainly: Ottoman influence on Albania is described as greater than any other outside influence, given five hundred years inside an Ottoman cultural mosaic. This was never merely political suzerainty. It included substantial conversion to Islam across large parts of the population, a demographic and religious change the Montenegrin or Croatian coast never underwent at scale; direct absorption into Ottoman administrative structure, the timar system and local beys; and full participation in Ottoman urban economy, Elbasan and Berat each supporting professional guild bakers by the seventeenth century. Ottoman technique, filo and byrek pastry, yoghurt culture, grilled and skewered meat, coffee, was absorbed here as the ambient, default cooking idiom, not layered onto something older, which is exactly why tavë kosi and byrek read today as unmarked, everyday Albanian food rather than as "Ottoman dishes" the way a Western menu might file them.

Read the history

As tradition built it

Serves 4 to 6. About 2.5 hours.

Ingredients

1.5 kg lamb, bone-in, cut into pieces
to taste salt
500 g full-fat strained yoghurt
3 eggs
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp butter, melted, plus extra for the top

Method

Salt the lamb, place it in a roasting dish with a little water, and roast at 200°C for about 1 hour, until well coloured.
Whisk the yoghurt with the eggs, flour, a little salt and a spoonful of the meat's own roasting liquid, then stir in the melted butter.
Warm this custard gently on the stovetop, 2 to 3 minutes over low heat, stirring, just enough to begin binding it; this is not a roux, and should not be treated as one.
Pour the warmed custard over the meat, dot with a little extra butter, and return to the oven at 200°C for 35 to 45 minutes, until the surface is deep golden.
The dish is ready when the surface is golden, the centre soft, and the meat separates easily with a fork.

What a modern chef changes

The custard's setting given the temperature control an oven can't offer.

Rung 5

Method

Set the custard in a sous vide water bath at a controlled 82 to 85°C after the initial stovetop warming, before it ever meets the roasting lamb, producing an evenly, gently set custard with none of the risk of splitting or weeping a domestic oven's uneven heat invites.
Roast the lamb separately to a precise internal temperature with a probe, then combine it with the custard only for the final browning stage, so the meat is never at risk of overcooking while the custard finishes.
Finish the surface with a kitchen torch rather than extended oven time, achieving the deep golden colour without risking the custard beneath it.

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