Lamb couscous

Ingredients

Marinade

1. 4 lamb leg steaks
2. 1 red chilli pepper chopped into rings
3. Half a teaspoon turmeric
4. Quiet a lot of black pepper
5. Two cloves garlic
6. Juice of half a lemon
7. Two tablespoons of olive oil

Dish

1. Two small parsnips chopped small
2. Four carrots chopped small
3. Large knob of butter
4. Three small onions
5. Tin of chickpeas
6. Small handful of cashews
7. 100g couscous
8. Coriander
9. Green beans

Marinade lamb, cut into small pieces, over night.

Heat whole marinade in hot pan. After a few minutes remove from heat in a separate pot and place lamb pieces back into frying pan, keeping cooked marinade for later. Fry lamb hard and fast, keep separate when cooked.

Chop onions, cook in same pan as lamb, add cashews and chickpeas.

Microwave parsnips and carrots with butter. Place in oven at 200°C.

Add couscous to marinade then add a cup of boiling water. Add onions and chickpeas. Add parsnips and carrots.

Place lamb on top.

Serve with green beans and coriander.

Two day pot roast lamb

Similar

• Pot Roast Shoulder of Lamb
• Pot Roast Shoulder of Lamb on Couscous
• Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

Day 1

A leg of lamb (1.040kg) from Willowbrook Farm at East Oxford Market.
Two large onions.
Two cloves of garlic.
Thyme

Day 2

Bag of co-op chantenay carrots
Bag of co-op prepared leaks
One lemon.

Instructions

Day 1

Add olive oil to casserole, seal joint over a high gas.

Stuff thyme and garlic into space inside leg.

Add two coarsely chopped onions, place in a high oven for half an hour.

Day 2

Peel carrots

Add four more onions

Add leaks

Place lamb on the bed of vegetables.

Put in oven at 100° for two hours.

Add redcurrant jelly and red wine.

Serve with potato and parsnip mash and cabbage.

Lamb leftovers and potato pie

Ingredients

Ruth brought back a 'doggy bag' of lamb from the Magdelen Arms: enough to feed a family of four!

620g lamb left overs

4 large carrots

3 medium onions

A bunch of spring onions

Frozen thyme, frozen rosemary

The lamb (mutton?) is quite fatty and fairly strong in flavour.

Slice the carrots thinly, add to large wok. Shred meat. Fry carrots in lamb fat. Then add chopped onion and lastly chopped spring onion. Soak up excess lamb fat using kitchen paper.

Add pepper, paprika, chilli and ginger.

Add a third of fried mixture to a Pyrex casserole dish. Slice two potatoes thinly, fry briefly in olive oil and place on top of mixture. Add some flour to remainder and fry, then add some water. Add to Pyrex dish. Slice and fry three more potatoes and place all in oven at 180°

Leg of Lamb

We have invited Jay and Julia over. They have fed us a couple of times, the first was a superb, enormous, rib eye of beef, so there is every excuse to push the boat out.

After Dancing I went to the Cowley Road, with my new bike baskets, to East Oxford Market and Alder's for a large leg of lamb.

The Market was great, got runner beans, broad beans and extra large eggs, as planned. What is so nice though is the unplanned purchases: a sour dough loaf, sheep's cheese, a beautiful kohl rabi and other goodies for the picnic tomorrow.

The lamb leg is five and a half pounds (2.45kg).

Following Delia Smith's Baked Lamb with Rosemary.

First make a mix to baste in: Rosemary, olive oil, garlic, sea salt. I added parsley flowers, thyme and quite a bit of ground black pepper. Stab leg twelve times with a thin knife. Smear in aromatic oil mix. I always put a bit of garlic in any stabs I can.

Now it is 5.17pm, aiming to serve at 9.00pm. Need three hours cook/rest time, so only a little while for the aromatic marinade.

We have onions in the garden, so whilst they are not mentioned by Delia, in they go. When prepared the onions are like oversized spring onions, nine of them about six inches long. I am going to add them in the last forty five minutes, that is at minute ninety.

Next: prepare beans.

6.10pm Lamb in - in a roasting dish, with another roasting dish on top upside down to keep it moist. Temperature 125°

Found a Chateau Neuf du Pape (Tescos) 2008 under the stairs; open now. Also put a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge.

Turned out a flower pot of potatoes: nine decent new potatoes and some tinies, padded out with four Jersey Royals and four from the veg box.

7.00pm Turn heat up to 170°

Re-read the recipe, lose faith in Delia. Reluctantly follow.

Ruth has bought a big bunch of Mint, a good scent with elongated leaves, though slightly less shiny green than traditional mint.

Delia wants me to make a redcurrant and white wine vinegar potion and pour over finely chopped mint.

In case this is a rubbish idea I am also going to make normal chopped mint and vinegar.

To start with wash the bunch of mint, then pick through it: remove the young leaves into a pile, put older leaves and stalk into a separate container, either for mint tea at the end of the meal or a pick-me-up tomorrow morning.

We do not have a herb chopper, but we do have 'the biggest Sabatier in the world', bought in my youth when I thought size was important. It rarely gets used these days but is just right for chopping mint.

Found two old jars of red currant jelly, add a little white wine vinegar an dmicrowave for 20 seconds, empty both jars into saucepan.
Same trick with some crystalised mint jelly: just a drop or two of water and microwave, turn out into little pot and put into fridge to cool down.

We are going to have mint jelly, redcurrant jelly and mint and redcurrant jelly

Picked a bowl of red currants.

Heat redcurrant jelly, about 4 table spoons full, with same amount of white wine vinegar (sorry Delia, no red wine vinegar available).

Potatoes on at 8.30pm.

Really chop the mint finely. Pour redcurrant jus over chopped mint.
Pour wine vinegar over other portion of chopped mint.

Take lid off lamb at 8.37pm.
Put temperature up to 200°

Remove from oven and rest for fifteen minutes.

Guests arrive and we have prosecco with red currents in!
Starters Cretan Olives

Ruth has made a pavlova.

Greek delight and halva to pick at.

Coffee and mint tea to finish.

Pot Roast Shoulder of Lamb on Couscous

Ingredients

1.124kg half shoulder of lamb
10 shallots
6 bay leaves

1 large parsnip
4 medium potatoes
4 carrots
3 red peppers
1 aubergine
1 fennel bulb
1 lemon
4 semi-dried apricots

Cooking

Place lamb in casserole, with lid on, roast hard for 1 hour

Remove from heat, remove bay leaves.
Add shallots, swede, garlic.
Replace lid, leave overnight.

Place in hot oven, 200°C

Boil diced potatoes, after 5 minutes add diced parsnips.
Cut peppers and add to pre-heated oil in baking tray.
Drain potatoes and parsnips, allow to steam dry for 5 minutes.

Add fennel and aubergine, then potatoes.

Cook hard for 1 hour.


Stir everything.

Remove lamb from pot.

Add water to marmite.
Add juice of a half a lemon, squeeze rest over vegetables in oven.
Sieve marmite, add 4 chopped ready-to-eat dried apricots and half the chopped lemon rind.
Pour on couscous in a bowl and leave to soak.

Serve with potato croquets made from yesterday's leftover mashed potato and mashed swede.

What actually happened

Ate with apple jelly.
The lamb tasted very good.
I enjoyed the mashed swede bake.

For next time

Some swede crept into roasted vegetables, they tasted a bit sour, as did the fennel.

Easter Shoulder of Lamb

We got the last shoulder of lamb from Sandy Lane Farm, where they had piglets!

Starting a little late I put the swede on to boil, and started to research. I have cooked lamb of many times, this Leg of Lamb recipe is about right. It references Delia and Ruth found this BBC Good FoodLeg of Lamb

We have rosemary,some thyme, mint, lots of chives in the garden.

A marinade of garlic, ginger, olive oil and black pepper.

In Colliore in August 2022 I made salt,

one litre of sea salt yields quite a lot of salt, I have been keeping it for a special occasion.

Roased with parsnips and carrot

Which all turned out well

and was followed by Ruth's pannacotta topped with raspberries.

Pot Roast Shoulder of Lamb

First proper use of my new 31cm oval Le Creuset casserole. After starting I re-read Pot Roast Shoulder of Lamb on Couscous, Leg of Lamb and Autumn Diced Pork for the butter beans.

Ingredients

A shoulder of lamb (1.092kg) from East Oxford Market.
Two 250g nets of Tesco organic shallots.
Three carrots (five more added later).
Sprig of rosemary, bay, thyme and sage.
Paprika and pepper.
Three cloves garlic.
One third of lemon.
Three leaks.
200g Tesco Chestnut mushrooms.
175g dry butter beans.

Place meat on a low heat in a little olive oil.

Peel shallots and add to pot.

Add herbs.

Add a teaspoon of paprika.

Ensure meat has browned on all sides.

After an hour put lid on and reduce heat.

Soak a cup of butter beans (175g)

Chop leaks and add to pot with mushrooms.

Leave over night, bought more carrots, micro waved and added.

Added beans and a few roasted pumpkin pieces.

Served with roast pumpkin, onion, garlic and parsnip with couscous.

Served seven (TimJ, Esme and Nina joined us). Added remains of roast vegetables to leftovers: a large pyrex full.

Also tried homemade cider: very dry.

Leftover Lamb Curry

On sunday we had a classic pot roast half leg of organic lamb from Sandy Lane Farm via East Oxford Market. It was slow cooked, in a well sealed Le Creuset casserole, with rosemary, garlic and thyme stuffed inside the joint.

It fed four, but now what to do with 250g of cooked lamb? Curry it.

Ground fennel seeds, one dry chili, two cloves, ground dry ginger, a tablespoon freshly ground cumin.
Four red onions.
Two chopped carrots.
Eight cloves of garlic.
A handful of chopped chives.
A handful of chopped flat leaved parsley.
A tin of chick peas.
A tin of green lentils.

Cook for an hour in oven.

Flora made raita: yoghurt, finely chopped cucumber, mustard, lemon juice.

Served with basmati rice, Patak's popadoms and Patak's naan bread and two varieties of mango chutney; with ice cream to follow!

The carrots were insipid and out of place, otherwise a success.

Celeriac and lamb coucous

Ingredients

• 4 lamb cutlets from Coombe Farm Organics
• Three fresh chillis
• One onion
• One stick celery

• ---

• One medium butternut squash
• Thyme
• Olive oil
• Butter

• ---

• One parsnip
• Six small carrots
• One medium potato
• Some cauliflower leaves and stalk

• ---

• One celeriac
• Fresh thyme
• 4 table spoons of chopped walnuts

Lamb cutlets

Chop onion, chillies, celery and place cutlets on top. Roast.

Squash

Chop into small cubes, roast with olive oil.

Vegetables

Chop potato, parsnip, carrots, cauliflower stalk into small cubes, in that order, microwave whilst chopping.

Roast with olive oil and thyme.

Celeriac

Chop into 2cm cubes, roast with olive oil. Toast walnuts in a frying pan and add.

Serve with couscous made with butter, vouillon powder and celery greens.

Garnish with fresh thyme, celery greens and corriander.

Easter Leg of Lamb

Following the post lamb roast from 2011. This is just us, so three carnivores and a vegetarian. Really difficult to calculate how long to cook it for. Somewhere between 65 minutes and 120, so go figure, also we have a new, hotter oven. Stabbed leg and inserted garlic slices last night, also juice of half a lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper. Today adding cooking on a bouquet of sage, rosemary, chives, marjoram and thyme.

Opened a bottle of red wine to breathe.

Cooked for 135 minutes - too long!

Served with new potatoes, carrots and broccoli.

The flavour was good but must remember to cook for less time.

The meal was eclipsed by pudding!

Slow roast Shoulder of lamb

A shoulder of welsh lamb from D.W.Walls in Ludlow.

Raymond Blanc reminds to take out of the fridge, score and marinade. I deviated on the marinade: chives, garlic, coarse black pepper, bay, rosemary, thyme, sea salt and most importantly chili oil.

Added onions, carrots, white wine and cooked for four hours.

Served with brocolli and green beans. Note more carrots and onions. Cooking for a long time really works, but reduces the onions to not much.

Easter Half Shoulder of Lamb

Like last year we went to Sandy Lane Farm, sadly I mismanaged my phone and did not photgraph the Oxford Sandy and Black young pigs with white forelocks, or the lambs in the back barn, though I thought I had.

Flora is in France with Varsity and Ellie is recovering from Caving Camp so we have invited Hannah and Becca over.

1.175kg

Marinade

Without really thinking about it I added two tablespoons of my own chili oil, this is pretty string and, pretty much a mistake, so I was thinking of sacrificial marinade: rub on and then wipe off.

1. Marjoram, thyme, chives, rosemary, bay
2. Half a teaspoon garlic powder
3. Half a teaspoon of paprika
4. Three cloves of garlic

Ruth felt this was going far too far towards the middle east and away from the simple English lamb she envisaged. After two hours the marinade should have worked, so I wiped it off.

Flash cook

The idea is to cook the meat hard for 20 minutes, then move to a new pot and roast more slowly on the vegetables. Due to the oven being in use, and an idea that it might be more economical and efffectie I decided to roast hard in a cast iron pot on the inducton hob.

Induction pot roast and oven pot roast are pretty much identical: the pot gets hot and the meat is cooked in steam. Where it differs is that itis easy to brown off the top in an oven by removing the pot lid. In both methods you have to be careful of the bottom of the pan, in this case I used bay leaves and lemon slices to keep the meat out of contact with the pan. Later I added the clean potato peelings, as it always feels like a waste to throw them away.

Prepared the pumpkin.

Removed potato and cleaned pot

Put in onion and a fresh bouquet garnis at 4:00pm.

Removed meat and made gravy with the caramelised onions.

Served with spring greens, carrots, roast potatoes and parsnips.

The flavour was very good.

Barbecue

Chilli and redcurrant marinade

Our home grown chillies are too hot. Cut them in half and removed seeds and pith, but the flesh is still too hot! Decided to only marinade three lamb chops. Marinade for 2 hours.

• Two de-seeded chillies
• Spoonful of homemade redcurrant jelly waste (the pips and everything)
• Crushed clove of garlic
• Olive oil

Mint and Rosemary Marinade

Apple mint, finely chopped, Two spoonfuls Jif lemon, Thyme, Finely chopped sage, Rosemary, Lemon skin

Portabella mushrooms

Remove centres of mushrooms, chop finely and add to mince.

Marinade
Two tablespoons Jif lemon, One lemon, including finely chopped skin, remove pips, Three garlic cloves, Thyme, Olive oil, Ginger, Coarse pepper

Beefburgers

Still had some brown bread crumbs in fridge from three weeks ago. If they smell good they are good, however I still heated them in a preheated oven for ten minutes at 200°

Fresh white bread crumbs,
Finely chopped mushroom stalks,
Two sage leaves,
Four small onions,
1 kg minced meat,
Pinch of cumin,
Tablespoon of freshly ground coriander,
Teaspoon of english mustard powder,
Juices from chipolata sausages (waste not want not) ,

Ellie decorated the cake with fruit.

Grandpa christened the barbecue he had assembled three weeks ago.

Neighbours came and cooked potatoes and ate with us.

Kofta

Ingredients

• 500g lamb mince
• 1 onion, very finely chopped
• 1 whole fresh thyme plant (from Sainsbury's)
• 6 leaves fresh sage
• 2 fresh green chillies
• 2 table spoons English mustard powder
• Lots of black pepper
• Salt (salt spoon full)
• Chopped garlic
• Chopped fresh ginger
• Madras Curry powder
• Oil the pan to avoid sticking

I have tried this out in a number of ways: beef mince, beef mince with an egg etc but this is the best yet.

Mix everything except the curry powder, leave to stand if you have time.

Form into koftas.

Oil the pan, add koftas, shake curry powder over all so koftas are oiled and powdered.

Cook for 20 minutes at 200°C