Crusted Lamb : Part 1

Ok, so I've got visitors tomorrow, and it's going to be a moroccan stew and couscous in the tagine, but cooked outside of the tagine I wanted to do a crusted rack of lamb as i'd seen one done on a cookery show recently.

Couldn't find a recipe was the kind of thing I was after though, a sort of haphazard sweet and savoury moroccan affair. Also, the recipe's online don't seem to agree on which order to sear, apply crust, and slow cook and if you can at any point refrigerate. So I took advice from Alison and Ian Mayor, it seemed wise.

My crust ingredients are...

Dry things for crustiness:

Almonds, Pine Nuts, Breadcrumbs, Black Pepper, Salt, Turmeric, Paprica, probably some other things that came to hand. I can't remember.

Wet things for sticking the crustiness to the lamb:

Olive Oil, Mustard, Sun Dried Tomato Paste, Harissa.

I've hammered all that together, seared the lamb on both sides, but mostly the fat side then applied a paste made mostly of the wet things. Then poured the remainder of the dry things on top. This is what it looked like:

It's now wrapped in clingfilm and waiting for tomorrow in the fridge. I'll let you know how it goes.

My intention, is to serve it with slices of orange, samphire and balsamic. Not sure if that's odd, but it's what i'm going to do.

Lamb Meatballs, with Chilli, Mint and Coriander.

So, we have some pretty big Chilli's (from the North East Chilli Festival, which Britt wrote about yesterday) and some Mint and Coriander, Red Onion, Cumin and Smoked Paprika from MMM Newcastle. This is much the same set of ingredients as in my Make it Mint post from a while back, but you get pictures this time.

Divide it up over some Lamb mince, quite a lot of it actually, and keep an egg on hand to bind it all together. Roll them into balls, get the herbs and spices as evenly spread through and into the middle of the lamb balls as possible.

Cooked in a frying pan with a little bit of oil, I should mention that they shouldn't really be moved much during cooking. Press down on one side, cook until the bottom is holding together then flip and press down on the other side. I don't know how long they took to cook. Probably just under ten minutes.

 We had them with Pitta bread, sour cream, a bit of salad and feta, and yes, that's going to work just fine right now but as with all such things the flavours develop a lot, so by day two or even three, the meatballs will be very, very good indeed. It's definitely worth making more than you can reasonably eat in one sitting.

Lamb Meatballs : Day 2

I added additional onions, peas and mushrooms to the pan to soak up the juices. We had this with some steamed broccoli, which is neither pictured nor essential, and some Red Wine, which isn't pictured but was essential. On the second day, the mint and coriander were really making their presence felt and really working with the Chilli.

These were some good Lamb Meatballs.

"A sausage runs through it"

This is not going to be pretty

OK, on my previous posts, I've received some suggestion that possibly I should have put photographs with it. By way of revenge, this post is going to be entirely photographs, and the only explanation I shall give is that it had been a long week at work and the idea of making something like a baguette with a seam of sausages running through it seemed like a good idea.

I started with two kinds of sausage - a dense lamb/beef moroccan type affair, and a more traditional pork sausage, though still quite a dense one.

As you will see, the dough rose considerably more than expected: I expected maybe an inch or two of bread all the way around the sausages, but it became massive!

I'm off to make a bacon sandwich.

Lamb with Butternut Squash, Garlic and things.

Veg Box!

Ok, so the veg box arrived from River Ford this afternoon - excellent as ever, amongst other things it contained wet garlic and butternut squash.

One thing lead to another and since it's a reasonably hot spring evening and barbeques were very much in evidence, quick as you like we nipped up to Morrisons (beggers can't be choosers) to get the biggest available lamb steaks on offer and some other things.

So, the butternut squash gets cut into chips and covered in smoked paprica from mmm newcastle which I do recommend. The carrots get covered in cumin. These get in the baking tray with a little oil (there may also have been ras al hanout, there usually is) and stuck in an oven at 220 degrees turned down to 170 straight away to soften and cook for an hour or so while I get the lamb sorted. Most of what I do with lamb comes one way or another from Nigel Slater's very excellent book: Appetite.

Marinade!

• Slice up the wet garlic. Wet garlic looks like a big spring onion, and is the foody find of the day.
• Chop up two or three anchovies. 
• Finely slice two or three twigs of rosemary.
• Sea salt and some smashed up pepper corns. Probably not too much salt as the anchovies will do that.

Smash all of that together in a pestle and mortar as best you can, then pour on some olive oil and squeeze quite a bit of lemon in there too.

Smear this all over your lamb steaks and leave them for as long as you can. In my case this was about ten minutes, but you know, this should really be measured in hours.

Lamb!

Get a griddle pan good and hot. A barbeque would be the ideal, but I don't have a garden. Once it's proper hot, chuck the lamb steaks on there with any marinade that's stuck to them. Any marinade that's left can be poured onto the butternut squash. The anchovies will more or less dissolve and add a saltyness to everything: this is good, but go canny on any additional salt.

Start warming up some plates. If you have steak knives they should be deployed now.

Three minutes on one side, pressed down, then a minute or so held with any fat against the pan, then onto its other side: squeeze any remaining lemon and pour any remaining marinade over it then three or four minutes on that side.

Put it on the Plate!

The lamb could use a couple of minutes to rest after its ordeal, so when you slice it it's pink but not bleeding. Sort out the butternut squash and carrots while the lamb is resting: get it all on a plate, and do not for one moment consider taking a photograph for a blog post. Do not worry about mixing tense or third/first person. Eat. Yes. 

Make it Mint

Mint is a new herb to me, being largely associated with the mint source to go with slices of Lamb at my grandma's house. Untill recently I never really understood how it works in a context that doesn't have Lamb on it.

Here's what I know now:

Mint, Coriander, Cashew Nuts and Chili's

• Take a small handful of fresh mint leaves, and small handful of fresh Coriander leaves and rip them up.
• Take a large Red Chilli and slice it into thin rings. Get rid of the seeds.
• Take a small handful of Cashew nuts and toast them up for a minute or so in a pan.

These four ingredients should be smashed together in a pestle and mortar, with a shake of Turmeric or Paprika, though not so far that the nuts become dust.


Now then, this can either be sprinked dry, more less as it is, but it's probably going to be better if you add a little bit of nut oil and a bit of soy sauce to make a paste or dressing.

So I need to put this on some actual food, or eat it off a spoon or what?

Well you can clearly use this as a nice dressing to add to a salad involving leaves, tomato, sliced spring onion and/or couscous and feta. You can call that done, you call that a victory.
 

That's a salad.

Where is Paul and what have you done with him?

Or we can do this properly: get your griddle or frying pan good and hot while you sprinkle some crushed black pepper and rub some oil onto a piece of sirloin or rump (or whatever) Steak - not a huge piece, but certainly as thick as your thumb. This recipe will be equally fine and maybe even better, with a small but again thickish Tuna steak from the Fish Quay.

Once your pan is hot, press the steak onto it. There will be smoke, so if you can open a window, turn on the extractor fan and close the door to any room you don't want to smell like beef, that would be a great idea. If you happen to have some Teriyaki, Hoisin or more soy to hand, you can pour a bit of this onto the streak before you turn it over. It'll make the edges a bit sticky and/or caramelised when you slice it. It'll make a lot more smoke.

After two minues, the steak should be griddled on one side now, turn it over for another two or three minutes. Not much more than that. If you've got good salt, sprinkle some on the cooked side now.

If there is fat around the edges make sure this gets pressed right down into the heat.

After absolutely no more than six minutes in total, get the steak onto a chopping board and leave it for two or three more minutes: if you do this the insides should still be nicely pink, but shouldn't bleed when you slice it into the thinnest strips your sharpest knife willl allow.

Place the strips onto a salad involving leaves, tomato, sliced spring onions. Pour the Mint, Coriander, Turmeric, and Chilli's on top, either dry or as a paste with some oil and soy, like I said.

You have now won.