Miyar Taushe (Lamb and Squash Stew)
Stew is a luxury because it demands what we seem to have the least of these days: time. When making miyar taushe (also known as miyan taushe), this earthy-sweet stew from northern Nigeria, you stand vigil while lamb simmers on the stove, slowly coming undone, and butternut squash softens in the oven, its skin ready to cave in. The squash is rendered velvety in a blender, with a dusting of calabash nutmeg — woodsier and mustier than regular nutmeg — then united with the lush lamb stock. Yemisi Aribisala, a Nigerian writer and the author of “Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds” (Cassava Republic Press, 2016), notes that the pot should be big enough so the stew reaches only halfway up, because it splatters. At the end, you deliver to your guests bowls of tamed sun, hot, creamy, melty, thick and earthy-sweet. Ligaya Mishan
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