Moroccan rack of lamb

Another busy week sweeps by. Exeter, Cheltenham, London. Back to living out of a suitcase and having too little time in my little kitchen. When I'm on the road I look forward to trying out restaurants around the country but part of me would almost always rather be cooking for myself, pottering gently in the kitchen.

Last week I had friends for dinner and discovered to my delight that my freezer was hiding a couple of racks of lamb. I think that rack of lamb is one of my favourite things to eat - a little pink (not too much so) and wonderfully succulent and juicy, each little cutlet of sweet meat is deeply satisfying to me.

Until recently, I always cooked lamb fairly traditionally - with herbs such as rosemary and thyme, sliver of garlic, perhaps the odd anchovy. I've been experimenting more though and love the way lamb works so brilliantly with spices - particularly north African spices. Harissa is a staple in my fridge. For me, this slightly smoky, aromatic chilli-based paste is just made to go with lamb. Occasionally I smear it over lamb chops and pop them under the grill for a speedy yet flavour-packed weeknight supper, but this dish is an altogether more special affair. I served it for friends when they came over last week and heaped the orange and carrot flecked couscous into the centre of a huge serving platter and then arranged the cutlets all around the edge. It was a lovely centrepiece to bring to the table (...though I forgot to take any photos, of course). Best of all perhaps is that whilst this looks impressive, it is actually very easy to make. You simply mix the marinade ingredients together, smear them over the lamb and throw it all in the oven. The accompanying couscous can be thrown together whilst the lamb is resting.

Moroccan-spiced rack of lamb with couscous
Adapted from a BBC Good Food recipe
Serves 2 (easily doubled or halved)

Ingredients:

1 rack of lamb with 6-8 cutlets depending on size
5 tbsp olive oil
1 heaped tablespoon of harissa paste
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp tumeric
big bunch fresh coriander, chopped
juice of half a lemon
2 carrots
4 small shallots
100g couscous
150ml hot vegetable stock
1 small orange
handful flat-leaf parsley
50g flaked almonds

1. Pre-heat oven to 200C. Score the fat on the back of the lamb racks, season and place fat-down in a baking tray. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tbsp of the oil, the harissa, cumin, tumeric, paprika and a small handful of the fresh coriander (reserve another large handful for later). Add the lemon juice and a pinch of salt and stir well to combine. Rub and pour this mixture all over the lamb racks.

2. Chop the carrots and shallots into rough chunks, drizzle with oil, season with salt and pepper and shake to coat. Put both the lamb and the veggies in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Timing will depend on size of racks and also how well you like your meat done. To give you an idea, those in the photographs were in for 25 minutes. Keep an eye on the veg - you want them nicely roasted.

3. Remove lamb and veg from oven and leave lamb to rest on a warm plate while you assemble the couscous. Boil the kettle to make you stock, or heat up stock you already have. Pour over the couscous, place a clean tea-towel on top and leave for five minutes. Fluff the couscous up with a fork and add remaining 3 tbsp of olive oil, the orange juice, carrots and shallots. Chop a large handful of flat-lea parsley and coriander and throw in - season and stir the lot together.

4. Cut the lamb into individual cutlets. Divide couscous between each plate and top with the cutlets. Scatter over the flaked almonds and then dig in!

Lamb with oven-roasted ratatouille

It has been a fairly blissful weekend, all in all. This was a surprise as I wasn't expecting it to be a particularly good weekend. After all, part of it involved work. I was over in northern France for work on Friday night. Usually we head back first thing on Saturday so as to salvage as much of the weekend as possible but this time, as the weather was so lovely and neither my colleague or I had plans for the weekend, we decided to take an early evening train back and enjoy a day exploring the area. Our initial plans to visit Le Touquet were thwarted when we realised that the entire population of France seemed to have the same idea (me? prone to exaggeration?? never...!). Rather than spend the day sitting in traffic, we headed further along the coast and found a small seaside town (the name of which I forget) with access to the most stunning sweep of beach. It seemed to go on for miles - the tide was right out and it was just perfect for a lovely pre-lunch stroll in the sunshine.


We then went on to Wimereux - a quintessentially French station balnéaire if ever there was one! We found a lovely bistro and had a delicious lunch (perfect goat cheese salad followed by grilled salmon with a buttery citrussy sauce, topped off with tarte tatin) all washed down with a little fresh and zesty Muscadet. Lovely way to spend Saturday.

On Sunday, I pottered in the garden and then joined a friend in Battersea Park where we lazed under the shade of a tree and ate a punnet of strawberries. Then it was on to another friend for supper in the garden. What a treat it was! We started with Pimms - Summer has truly arrived. See Julia's post for tips on making the perfect jug of Pimms.


As we enjoyed this first taste of Summer, we nibbled on pitta bread and dips whilst we caught up on all the latest news. It was so great to be outside in summery dresses late into the evening. The table looked tempting with fresh salads: mixed leaves with sunblush tomatoes and courgettes with feta and mint.


We had a fantastic starter of salmon carpaccio which had been cured in lime juice in the style of ceviche. A Nigella recipe apparently. We had hunks of sourdough bread to soak up the citrussy juices. It was presented beautifully:


Next we had some fabulous lamb. I'd had a few glasses of wine by this point so there are no photos and I forgot to ask how it was prepared. I think it was lamb fillet perhaps - it was meltingly tender. We finished with mixed berries. Perfection!

To make up for the lack of lamb information, I'm sharing a great dish that I enjoyed last week (...slightly tenuous link, I know...). I had some lovely little lamb steaks in the freezer which I griddled and served quite pink along with a really good oven-roasted ratatouille. It is actually not really a ratatouille at all. In fact I should probably just call it roasted vegetables. But it had all the flavours of ratatouille, so I'm going with that as a title! In any case it was really rather good.

Griddled lamb with oven-roasted ratatouille
Serves 2 (easily multiplied or halved)




Ingredients

2 lamb steaks

1 small courgette
half an aubergine
1 large red onion
1 red pepper
handful of cherry tomatoes
1 fat clove of garlic
a sprig or two of thyme
olive oil

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Chop onion, pepper, courgettes and aubergine into 2 cm dice (or thereabouts). Chop garlic finely.

2. Place aubergine in a colander, sprinkle salt over it and weigh down with a plate and a tin of tomatoes (or similar weight). Leave for up to half an hour (this draws out bitterness, so I am told). On this occasion I didn't bother with this as I was hungry, but I'm telling you about it just in case you feel like doing things properly!

3. Drizzle oil into a small roasting tin and heat up in the oven. Meanwhile rub a little olive oil onto the lamb steaks, chop up some thyme and massage into the meat. Leave in a bowl covered with cling film until ready to cook.

4. Put onion, peppers and garlic into the oven to roast. After ten minutes add the courgette and aubergine and season well with salt, pepper and a little thyme. Roast for half an hour. Add the tomatoes and roast for a further 10-15 minutes, until the tomatoes are squishy.

5. Heat the griddle pan to high and cook the lamb to your taste. Serve with the ratatouille which should have a wonderfully rich and smoky flavour.


Notes: As you can see, I used a biscuit cutter to 'shape' the ratatouille into a circle. I think it looked more appealing than a great big dollop of the stuff. But that may just be me!

Slow-roasted lamb with gratin dauphinoise

You may well be wondering what on earth the above picture has to do with lamb. Or gratin dauphinoise. Virtually nothing. But I felt the need to share it nonetheless. What is it? Well, it is the ground floor of Exhibition Hall 1 at the Barbican in London. And what it lining that floor in neat little rows? Bottles of wine. Yes, really. Bottles of wine. On Wednesday I participated in the first round of judging for the International Wine Challenge. It was the first time for me and it was slightly daunting, to say the least. I was assigned to a panel of four as the most junior member and we tasted our way through a whopping 138 wines of all varying styles (and qualities), trying to reach consensus on whether they merited a medal. I was absolutely staggered by the organisation that goes into this competition. Each wine is tasted in the first week by a panel. Any that are rejected are re-tasted by one of a team of 'super-jurors' to check that nothing medal-worthy has slipped through the net. All the goodies are re-tasted in week two in order to assign scores and medals. Quite something.

It has been a busy week with wine tastings in Norwich, Chelmsford and London so I was really looking forward to the weekend and the chance to catch up in my kitchen. Today, I had seven for Sunday lunch - the sun came out at the perfect time and we enjoyed Prosecco sitting in the garden. Very civilised. I had bought a very large leg of lamb from my favourite local butcher but wanted to do something a little different from the usual roast.


I decided that I would like to slow-roast the joint at a low heat until the meat was falling off the bone. To prevent it drying out I would throw some wine into the pan and cover with foil. Of course, had I one of those huge cast iron oval casserole dishes, I would have used that. But I don't. And it seems silly to buy one just for one dish. So I used a high-sided roasting tin. Despite cooking the joint for over five hours, it wasn't falling off the bone as I had anticipated. It was delicious and very easy to carve but just not quite how I had imagined. I was a bit concerned that it might just seem very overcooked (I usually like my lamb pink), but this wasn't the case due to the wine.

To go with the lamb, I cooked one of my favourite potato dishes: gratin dauphinoise. To me it always seems like such a decadent, luxurious potato treat and everyone always tucks in greedily. Everyone has their own way of making this favourite, but I am very particular about how it is done. If anyone hasn't tried making this before, then do try this version; it is totally foolproof and very easy. The most important step is to start cooking the potatoes in the creamy mixture in a large non-stick frying pan before transferring to the baking dish. Someone explained the science to me once - something about releasing the potato starch as soon as possible to kick-start the cooking process. There is nothing worse than underdone potato gratin. Unless you ask my friend Joni who firmly believes that nothing in life is worse than a bad olive.

I don't use cheese in my gratin dauphinoise - it isn't necessary. It tastes almost cheesy without the cheese. You probably won't believe me, but it is true!

Slow-roasted lamb

Ingredients

1 large leg of lamb, bone in (mine was 3kg and would have easily fed 10)
few sprigs rosemary
few sprigs thyme
1 large onion
1 bulb garlic plus 3 cloves garlic
vegetables (I used carrot and half celeriac)
1 bottle of white wine

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Remove lamb from fridge at least half an hour before putting in the oven. With a sharp knife, cut slits in skin of lamb and push slices of garlic and sprigs of rosemary in alternate slits.

2. Roughly chop the onion, carrot and celeriac (or other veg). Place in centre of deep-sided roasting tin (or large casserole). Slice garlic bulbs in half around the centre and add to the pan. Place the lamb on top and roast at the high temperature for half an hour uncovered.

3. After half and hour, remove the lamb and turn temperature down to 150C. Pour bottle of wine into the pan. Yes, really. The whole bottle. Cover in foil (or place lid on casserole). Return to oven for at least four hours, basting occasionally.

4. After four hours, remove the foil and turn heat back up to 180C for 20 minutes if you feel you would like the skin a little browner. Remove from oven and leave to rest before carving.

5. Pour the fat from the pan and use the juices and veg to make a tasty gravy. Push through a sieve and serve with potatoes and vegetables.

Notes - I served this with leeks, peas and parsnip puree as well as the dauphinoise potatoes.



Gratin dauphinoise
serves 6


Ingredients

1.5 lb potatoes
5 fl oz milk
5 fl oz double cream
1 clove garlic
nutmeg
butter

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Peel potatoes and slice very finely, preferably using a mandolin or food processor.

2. Place potatoes in a large non-stick frying pan along with the cream, milk and crushed garlic. Season well with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg.
salt and pepper



3. Heat gently for around 15 minutes until the cream starts to thicken. Take care not to burn and stir so that all the potatoes are evenly coated.

4. Pour the entire mixture into a buttered, ovenproof dish. No need to arrange the slices neatly - it will look wonderful without any artistic talent. Dot with butter and then bake in the oven for around an hour.


5. Remove and serve immediately or allow to cool and re-heat the following day. You can even cut out neat shapes using a pastry cutter and re-heat on a baking sheet.