Editorials
Let’s Eat Edition 1: Roasted Leg Of Lamb With Couscous (Inspired By Hannibal)
In my birthday post last year, I casually mentioned that I love cooking. But what I didn’t state was that I really, really enjoy cooking. I have fun with it. I almost feel like a mad scientist, a culinary Dr. Frankenstein in that I put whatever sounds good together and hope for a tasty result.
Recently, while watching an episode of Hannibal, I was inspired by a dish that he created (only click on that link if you’re caught up on the show). I know, it’s pretty morbid. But sometimes the most unsettling things can create something wonderful. Now, keep in mind that I have absolutely zero formal training. What I did was completely drawn upon from my own experiences with cooking and pretty deciding that I wanted to try something new and crazy.
So, with that in mind, I decided to tackle a roasted leg of lamb with some tricolor couscous as the main side. And since this recipe is inspired by something so ghoulish and macabre, I figured, “Why not share it with the BD audience?”
Below is my step-by-step guide for the meal. With it, you can host your own dinner party.
Roasted leg of lamb:
One 3-4lb leg of lamb, deboned
1/2 cup prunes
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
Cooking twine
1-2 large banana leaves
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
8-10 small red potatoes cut into bite size chunks
Minced fresh chives
Spice rub:
Coarse sea salt
Whole peppercorns
Red pepper flakes
Cumin
Rosemary leaves
Couscous:
2 cups tricolor couscous
2.5 cups unsalted chicken stock
1 tbsp butter
Prepare the spice rub
I put all of my spices into a mortar and pestle and ground everything together into a fine rub. I opted to go a little light on the red pepper flakes as I didn’t want this to be a hot, spicy dish but instead I just wanted a little bit of warmth.
Prepare the lamb
1. Open up the deboned leg of lamb
2. Cut off any big chunks of fat but make sure to leave a little bit. Fat is where a lot of flavor resides and it will help this roast stay juicy and succulent
3. Sprinkle the spice rub liberally throughout the inside of the leg and then proceed to rub it in, making sure to get into the cracks and crevices
4. Mix the prunes, dried apricots, walnuts, and almonds in a bowl or bag and then place them in the middle of the opened lamb leg. The idea here is that the left and right parts of the leg will close over the mixture, creating a sweet, nutty center. If you want, you can sprinkle some of the garlic slices in the middle as well
5. Wrap the left and right parts of the meat over the center and then tie the whole leg up with cooking twine
6. Between the cooking twine make small, shallow incisions in the meat. Insert the garlic slices into these incisions
7. Wrap the roast in clean, freshly washed banana leaves (it’s okay if they’re a little wet). It’s okay to lightly tie the banana leaves with cooking twine so that it doesn’t fall open
8. Put the wrapped lamb leg into a roasting pan and then put that into the fridge to settle for at least an hour
Cooking the lamb roast:
1. Take the roast out of the fridge and let it get to room temperate (45 minutes to 1 hour)
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
3. While the oven is preheating, you can put the bite size potato chunks in the roasting pan around the lamb. Make sure to drizzle with olive oil so that you get a nice crisp to the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper
4. Put the lamb in the oven near the center
5. It takes about 15-20 minutes per pound, so a 3.5lb roast (which is what I had) took about an hour
6. When the lamb is done, take it out and place the whole thing (minus the potatoes) onto a serving platter. Cut off the banana leaves, exposing the lamb roast
7. Place the lamb roast on a very hot grill for a minute on each side. This will give the roast a really nice char on the outside
8. After taking the roast off the grill, leave it for 10 minutes to settle
9. Put the potatoes in a serving bowl and sprinkle with minced chives
Couscous:
1. Melt the butter in a sauce pot
2. Add the couscous and stir constantly, toasting the couscous (note: do NOT use a plastic stirrer, which is a mistake I made the first time I did this)
3. Once it’s browned a little and you have a rich, nutty smell, add the chicken stock
4. Bring to a boil, cover and then turn off the stove but leave the pot on the burner
5. Check after five minutes. It’s okay if there is a little bit of liquid left as you can stir it in while fluffing the couscous
Serve to friends or family along with a nice red wine. Make sure to pile the lamb, fruits and nuts on top of the couscous while putting the potatoes on the side for a beautiful presentation. For dessert, I poured each person a glass of blackberry mead. I got mine from Schramm’s.
If you’ve got some recipe ideas or want me to try and come up with something, let me know via Twitter below!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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