I’ve been playing with my immersion circulator again and came up with this festively coloured lamb dish.
The cut is rump and it was vacuum sealed along with some rosemary before being cooked to the magic 64 degrees and then quickly seared in a smoking hot pan.
Served with a sweet tomato passata, pepped up with a little chilli, spiced cous cous and baby leaf spinach it was darn near perfect.
It’s only so much time that can be spent in a state of blissful relaxation before the mind turns to food.
On holiday breakfast tends to be a mere distraction – a hastily gobbled croissant, piece of fruit or biscotti washed down with a short, sharp coffee. Lunch provides a brief respite from the heat of the day, usually some bread and cheese with a couple of tomatoes on the side.
But dinner is where the magic happens. This is the real centrepiece of the day where effort truly pays off and the gentle preparation can be done whilst gradually slipping into a state of happy inebriation.
As such, the majority of my days were spent thinking about what to cook that evening.
Being in possession of a pizza oven, we, naturally, cooked pizza. But the giant domed edifice was still warm come the following morning: the perfect conditions to slow cook some local lamb.
After adding some more fuel we went in search of the meat and returned with two whole shoulders – almost a quarter of the beast – ready to be browned off, sat atop some freshly picked rosemary and crushed garlic and shoved into the waiting furnace, cooking slowly in a winey bath until it emerged lovingly tender and achingly delicious.
It also seemed a good time to indulge in my first ever video post so please be kind. I’m still learning.
And, yes, I really did come that close to setting my head on fire. Look carefully and you will see the innocent, yet telltale, wisp of smoke rising from my reddening forehead.
Slow cooked Lamb
Leg of lamb is fine, and if that’s your sort of thing then I’m happy for you. But shoulder is the business end, where the real flavour is. It does a bit more work, and as such should be cooked longer and slower, but the effort is worthwhile.
It’s also slightly fattier which will baste the meat from the inside keeping it juicy, rich, tasty and tender.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6PTiukdKTs]
Serves 8-10
Two lamb shoulders, complete with neck
Two bulbs of garlic, squashed lightly under the flat of a knife
Half a lemon
Two handfuls (think bricklayer’s size rather than manicurist) of rosemary
Salt and pepper
Half a bottle of red wine
Season the lamb with salt and pepper all over and brown in a large frying pan. Layer half the rosemary and garlic in a casserole dish big enough to hold everything comfortably. Nestle the lamb on top and then deglaze the frying pan with red wine.
Put the rest of the rosemary and garlic on top of the lamb, squeeze over the lemon then pour over the wine.
Cook in a 200 year old wood burning oven for about four hours, turning and basting halfway through. Temperature? Pretty hot.
NB – Make sure you don’t get too close to the oven and singe your fringe.
If you are only in possession of a regular oven go for about 120 degrees. Serve with potatoes and maybe a token salad. Maybe.
For more slow cooked and half baked musings, follow me on Twitter
Where last week’s jaunt into the culinary underbelly was nothing short of cerebral, this edition sees us travelling to, well, the underbelly.
Breast of lamb, a cut near identical to pork or beef short ribs, is criminally underused and as a result is almost giveaway cheap. It has featured on these pages before (paired with lamb’s kidneys) but it really is delicious enough to stand-alone.
For the gastronomically minded, it can be used to make lamb ‘bacon’ and it is a cut gaining in popularity amongst top-end chefs – Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 features breast of lamb on his menu.
Whilst I’m not averse to tinkering with high end cooking: dishes that take days, rather than hours, to plate up and consist of a dizzying combination of foams, airs, purées, spheres, mousses, geleés, crisps and other such assorted tom-foolery, sometimes what you really want is hearty and basic.
Lamb and beans is a classic combination throughout France and North Africa. Slow cooked shanks with flageolet beans. Lamb stew with white beans and fresh coriander. Rack of lamb with a bean cassoulet.
Whatever the combination there is something hearty, warming and satisfying about the taste of the meat – now beginning to develop some flavour (I find spring lamb over-rated and lacking in flavour) – and the fulfilling nature of the beans.
Breast of Lamb roasted with onion and spiced chick peas (garbanzo beans)
Although there isn’t an awful lot of meat on this particular cut, it is fatty and the inherent richness should leave you feeling sated without being overly full. As the lamb roasts it will release its moisture into the bed of chickpeas waiting expectantly below. The result is some of the tastiest pulses you will ever chow down.
A single piece of lamb breast should easily serve three-four people, depending on how long it has been since they last ate and whether or not they are the sort of friends happy to be fobbed off with extra pulses and veg instead of meat. Thought not. The recipe below is for two.
Lamb breast, about 500g in weight.
An unwaxed lemon
Oregano (dried or fresh, finely chopped – as much as you want)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Zest the lemon and juice half of it into a bowl. Add the same amount of olive oil, the oregano and season with salt and pepper. Slash the top of the lamb and rub the mixture into it.
For the chickpeas
One tin of chick peas, drained and rinsed
One large white onion, finely diced
One large red onion, roughly chopped
Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped
A teaspoon of smoked paprika
Salt and Pepper
Four or five sprigs of fresh oregano
A splash of olive oil
Mix all the above together and tip into a roasting tray (large enough to hold the lamb).
Get a ridged griddle pan screamingly hot (leave it on there for five minutes before you even think of cooking on it. Seriously. These things take an age to get hot).
Sear the lamb for four-five minutes until it has some good colour on one side. Flip and cook for another couple of minutes. Place the lamb on top of the chickpeas and roast in a moderately hot oven (c. 150 degrees C) for about an hour and a half. Give the tray a shake a couple of times during cooking.
Lift the lamb onto a cutting board and leave it to rest whilst you are plating up. Pile a heap of baby spinach leaves into the middle of a plate, top with the roasted chickpeas and hunks of meat that you have delicately carved/hacked mercilessly from the bones.
Ideally, serve in front of episodes of the West Wing with a crisp white wine for company.
Feel free to gnaw away at the meat still clinging to the ribs. I did. ‘You are such a shameless carnivore,’ said the GF. If I had been in a position to answer, I wouldn’t have been able to deny it.
For more assorted off-cuts, follow me on Twitter
You can be so cruel. I was worried for this one.
Kidney has been my bête noire for quite some years.
Fifteen years ago, I made a solemn vow never to knowingly eat it ever again. Ever.
When I was twelve I stayed over at a friend’s house. For dinner, his mother (an excellent cook) pulled a stunning looking pie from the oven. The golden suet pastry glistened and the gravy inside was rich and dark.
It looked great.
One mouthful in was enough to put me off kidney forever. The strong uric smell. The faint ammonia tang. I gipped uncontrollably – not ideal behaviour for a house guest – and decided that some things were not meant to be consumed.
Kidney rapidly moved into second place on the list (tinned tuna still resides proudly and unwaveringly at the list’s summit).
I knew that it was a grim inevitability that this particular piece of offal would grace N3T at some point. I didn’t expect it to be so early on but thanks to a request from Tiramisu, here it is. In week four of the project.
‘Would you like me to take the fat off for you?’ asked the butcher. Each dark brown conker-like organ was surrounded by a dense covering of cream fat.
‘No thanks,’ I replied, wanting to experience the entire process and also hoping to acquire a large quantity of dripping, perfect for roasting potatoes.
By the time I got them home, I’d formulated a dish in my head: kidneys fried in their own fat and served with mustard mash, wilted greens, glazed shallots, slow roasted lamb breast and parsley and mint sauce. A red wine, lamb and rosemary jus would hopefully mask the flavour of the centre-piece enough to repress the gag reflex.
The lamb breast was there to ensure a decent meal even if the kidney proved to be totally inedible. A substitute already in play.
After the kidneys had been peeled (peeled!) I cut them in half bracing myself for the smell of men’s nightclub toilet at 1AM…
…but it wasn’t to be. Cue surprise one.
The niff was gentle, not unpleasant. Very faintly uric, of course, but no where near as pungent as I was expecting.
The centre of each was cut out and they were soaked in a water/vinegar bath (3:1) for about fifteen minutes (to neutralise the alkalinity) before being dried. For the cooking, they were seasoned with salt and pepper and fried over a high heat in some of the rendered suet fat.
The lamb breast was braised then slow roasted before being fried in olive oil just before serving (more on this wonderful cut next week) and the whole lot piled onto a plate in a faintly ordered fashion with the potatoes, onion, greens and sauces.
Cue surprise two: the kidney was good.
Let’s not get carried away, however. In this sense ‘good’ means ‘didn’t make me dry heave into a napkin until my stomach muscles ached.’
But it was perfectly edible. Tasty even. The richness of the sauce proved sufficient in masking the flavour I was so scared of and although half a kidney was more than enough and I won’t be making any efforts to cook them again, I was pleasantly surprised.
As were my guinea pigs. This week due to location it was my younger brother and his girlfriend. Both cleared their plates. Bruv even went back for more. A good sign indeed.
So, another success for N3T, albeit a partial one. But at 50p each (the same price as the hearts) you can’t really complain.
Follow me on Twitter.
[Note on the photos - no DSLR this week so had to wrestle with a compact. More difficult than I remembered.]
Not only are we moving away from the magnificent pig this week, having stuck resolutely to the extremities for the last fortnight (with cheek and tail), we’re heading towards the centre of the beast.
Right to the very heart, in fact.
Despite enjoying exactly the same biological construction as muscle tissue, the heart is firmly within the bracket loosely titled ‘offal’. Why? Because it does something. It performs a function, a function with which we are conspicuously familiar.
Whilst I’ve cooked the occasional pate, offal is not something I’m familiar with. Part of the philosophy behind this feature is to attempt to rectify this glaring omission in my culinary experience.
I’ll admit now that I am squeamish about certain things but I’m also rapidly learning to put aside my fears and prejudices. Partly because I think it important, partly because I hope it makes for good reading.
The same could also be said for my increasingly courageous and accommodating girlfriend. It’s one thing to cook ‘the nasty bits’ for yourself, quite another to foist them upon your loved ones.
‘I knew you were going to walk out of there with something odd,’ she said to me last Saturday as we exited the deceptively cavernous Middle Eastern supermarket on Cambridge’s Mill Road.
I tried to defend my actions, admittedly hard to do when clutching a small plastic bag containing two lambs’ hearts. ‘But they were only fifty pence each,’ I offered hopefully and somewhat ineffectively.
I failed to convince myself, despite my outward confidence.
‘It’s just like a steak,’ I added.
‘It’s not though, is it? It’s a heart. I know what it does and I’ve got one. I don’t have any steaks or fillets but I do have a heart. They are quite important.’
It was a good point. There is a linguistic difference when talking about meat: pigs become pork. Cows become beef and the names of the cuts are often comfortingly vague: rack of lamb, sirloin, brisket, fillet.
With offal it is a different story.
Offal speaks to you in plain language. Sure, there is the occasional softener (sweetbreads, for example) but mostly it is unadorned: liver, kidney, brain and heart. We can relate to these. We know what they do. We have them, as had been adroitly pointed out.
‘I really don’t think I can eat heart.’
This was going to be a challenge. But one I was looking forward to.
There are, it seems, three ways to cook heart. They can be stuffed and roasted, sliced and fried like a steak (no more than medium rare, unless you wish to be chewing on it for a month), or slow cooked in a braise.
Being a fan of the magical alchemy of slow cooking, I chose the latter, sure that if I could convince my most honest critic, I could convince almost anyone.
Braised Lambs’ Hearts with onion and black olive pie, spinach, nettle and mint puree, fondant potato and glazed carrots
Once the sinew and fat has been trimmed away and the heart meat cut into manageable pieces, it takes on a more familiar appearance. It looks, to all intents and purposes, like meat.
Knowing what works, all that was needed was to coat the pieces in seasoned flour, brown them in a hot pan then add them to the Le Creuset along with some onion, garlic, carrot and rosemary. Topped up with red wine and lamb stock, the whole lot goes into a cool oven to cook away for at least two hours.
This is, generally, a good approach to take with any number of cheap cuts which need the low temperatures and lengthy cooking times to break down the connective tissue and collagen that holds the meat together. The benefit is a deliciously rich and unctuous stew with meat as tender as any prime cut.
While spoonfuls of this could easily be served alongside a baked potato or underneath a golden pie crust, the Thomas Keller school of cookery (and if anyone knows a thing or two about food, it is that man) advocates discarding the vegetables (which have already imparted its flavours into the pot), removing meat and reducing the sauce down to a thick, sticky jus.
So that’s what I did.
100ml of cassis liqueur was added to a pan along with the same amount of gravy from the stew and a few cubes of frozen beef stock. A couple of sprigs of rosemary and a split clove of garlic were also dropped in before the whole lot was reduced down. After passing through a fine sieve, the meat was returned back to the jus to warm through.
Although refined, this dish screamed ‘hearty’ (excuse the pun). And what could be heartier than a pie?
I remembered reading somewhere that in parts of France, lamb is often served with black olives. It seemed like a flavour combination that would work so I fried off some onions in olive oil, added some finely chopped black olives and then made a basic vegetable suet pastry to house the faintly sweet mix. Brushed with eggwash, they took barely ten minutes in a hot oven.
Mint is also a classic accompaniment with lamb but instead of a sweet and vinegary mint sauce of the type that graces dinner tables across the land every Sunday, I plumped for a more delicate side of spinach, nettle and mint puree (cook the leaves – one part fresh mint, one part nettle, two parts baby leaf spinach – in a little water, blitz, drain and season).
For the rest of the vegetables, sweet glazed carrots and fondant potatoes, cooked in a little chicken stock, completed the dish.
So, to get to the heart of the matter (sorry), how was it?
It wasn’t just surprisingly good, it was deliciously good. It was the sort of food that somehow has the ability to make you very happy indeed. It was rich, tasty, satisfying and all those other things that go into making a successful braised dish.
The heart had a deep flavour though not over-powering. It was ever so slightly ferric, like very mild liver but also deeply meaty. Texturally it had bite but wasn’t chewy or tough. The small morsels offered a little resistance but more than compensated in flavour. This is everything that is good about food.
‘Can I quote you?’ I said to my girlfriend after she had proclaimed it ‘completely delicious, so good. It’s possibly the best thing you’ve ever cooked. I can’t believe you got me to eat heart and enjoy it this much! Mmmmm, so, so good!’
‘Of course you can quote me,’ she replied. So I just did.
Verdict: N3T – Lambs’ hearts: a complete and utter success. Do again? With absolute certainty. And at fifty pence a go, it is almost sacrilegious not to buy these when they are available.
Any changes? Serve with buttery mash and wilted spinach. Simple, hearty and, in the words of my girlfriend ‘so, so good.’
Follow me on Twitter
Food is a process.
Whether you are eating an apple freshly plucked from a low-hanging branch on a warm Autumn evening or munching through a Big Mac in a harshly lit McDonalds, you are taking part in a process.
An awareness of this should be essential, especially when meat is concerned.
Many of us consume meat without thinking about the full implications of the process required to transform a living, breathing animal into something we can eat.
As a result the process has become convoluted and swollen like a diseased abscess. Now consumers can pick up neatly packaged portions of meat, hermetically sealed and bearing no resemblance to the cow, pig, sheep, chicken or springbok that it was once a part of.
Spending a day learning the basics of animal butchery with a qualified expert is one such way you can restore an awareness of the link between what we eat and where it comes from.
So, that’s what I did.
I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story (full article will appear in due course, once it has been published).
A whole lamb carcass, covered in mutton cloth (meat hates being wrapped in plastic).
I learned the basics of how to butcher lamb, pork and beef but due to technical issues (ahem, did someone say ‘memory card’?) only managed to get pictures of the lamb.
The tools of the trade – a boning knife and steel. Knives are sharpened regularly throughout the day. Blunt knives are far more dangerous than razor sharp ones.
Once the mutton cloth is off, the lamb starts to resemble an animal. You can see the kidneys in the foreground like two shiny conkers.
The carcass is then divided into ‘primary cuts’…
…before starting to look like more recognisable pieces…
…like this rack of lamb being french trimmed.
The completed rack which went straight into the shop’s display, mere metres away, within a few seconds of this picture being taken.
A good butcher doesn’t just portion up pieces of meat. Much of the day is spent expertly preparing a range of other items – hams, sausages, brines, bacon or boned shoulder of lamb stuffed with parsley, garlic and olive oil:
You don’t get that in a supermarket.
So, what did I learn?
I learned that butchery is a skill, an artform, that is worthy of respect and can take years to master.
I learned that it’s hard work.
I learned that there is a world of difference between production line meat of the sort that we buy in supermarkets, and rare breed, well-treated, well-hung meat that is available in butchers’ shops.
I learned that butchers have a bigger range and better prices than any of the supermarkets. I came back with cheeks, trotters, tails and lamb breast. Not to mention a promise that anything else I wanted could be ordered in. Sweetbreads, tongue, beef short ribs and many other treats are on their way.
I learned (and I have the sore hands to prove it) how to do a butcher’s knot (photo tutorial to follow).
I learned that the anatomy of lambs, pigs and cows is almost identical (no, really).
And finally? I learned that getting your hands dirty is an inevitable and massively enjoyable part of being a food writer.
Follow Just Cook It on Twitter.
I'm Alex Rushmer: writer, chef and Masterchef 2010 finalist. Welcome to my little corner of the Web. Why not get a cup of tea, snuggle down and make yourself at home?
