Forever Summer (16 page)

This is a fantastically low-effort recipe: your most strenuous activity is peeling the garlic. And if it helps you feel relaxed, too, you can fry them in advance and serve them at room temperature. If you’ve got a ridged grill or frying pan use that to show them off at their charcoal-striped, impressive best, but an ordinary oven-bound grill or unfancy frying pan will do. Obviously, a barbecue would be wonderful; the yoghurt so tenderises the meat that however searing the heat, they just cannot dry up.

1 x 450–500g pot Greek yoghurt

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 large onion

1 head garlic

1 teaspoon Maldon salt

20 lamb cutlets

groundnut oil (optional)

Empty the yoghurt pot into a large shallow dish (it has to be big enough to fit all the lamb chops later, or use two) and then stir in the cumin. Peel and roughly chop the onion and add it. Break the head of garlic into cloves, peel them and squash them slightly just by pressing on them with the flat of a heavyish knife, then stir them into the yoghurt along with the salt. Then arrange the lamb cutlets and give a good slow stir, spooning the yoghurt over them, so that all the meat is coated with the marinade. You might think at first that this won’t be possible and that you haven’t got anywhere near enough yoghurt, but you want them only barely masked by the marinade, not deeply immersed in it.

Cover the dish or dishes with clingfilm and put in the fridge (or, if the weather isn’t sweltering, in a cool place) for at least 4 hours.

When you want to eat, put a ridged grill pan or whatever on the hob and heat up (if you’re using an ordinary frying pan, add a little oil) then take the lamb cutlets out of the marinade. Wipe them with some kitchen towel, but you don’t need to dry them obsessively. Then just fry them for a few minutes each side, so that they’re cooked as much or as little as you like them, and then arrange on a big plate or, better still, a couple of big plates (saves passing them up and down the table) and serve hot, warm or cold.

I love these with
moutabal
, but I’m not fussy: a bowlful of
Greek Salad
would be fabulous too.

Serves 6–8.

RACK OF LAMB WITH MINT SALSA

By mint salsa, I mean something along the lines of an Italian salsa verde, but with that greenness in the main provided by finely chopped mint. We’ve grown to think there’s something shameful in mint sauce, as if in cooking lamb the only worthy flavourings or accompaniments could be garlic and rosemary. Now, I still love mint sauce the way my mother made it, finely chopping the herb, then stirring in sugar and vinegar; this new-age take on it attempts to preserve what was so wonderful about it, the fresh sprightliness and piquancy, but bring to it a more modulated, modern tone.

With the lamb and this sauce, I tend to make – and we all have our own lazily unthinking, push-button repertoire – the
new season’s roast vegetables
. The sour astringency of the salsa, indeed, goes so well with the sweet nubbliness of the baby veg, that I sometimes leave the lamb out of the equation altogether: just bake the vegetables and drizzle the herbal, acerbic green oil over, adding perhaps some more freshly chopped mint on top.

2 racks of lamb, approx. 8 cutlets on each rack

for the mint sauce:

30g fresh mint (or 2 supermarket packets)

30g fresh flat-leaf parsley

16 cornichons (baby gherkins)

4 teaspoons capers

200ml extra virgin olive oil

4 teaspoons white wine vinegar, or to taste

pinch caster sugar

ground black pepper

Maldon salt

Preheat the oven to 210°C/gas mark 7. Make sure the lamb is out of the fridge and well on its way to becoming room temperature; if still fridge-cold when they go into the oven add about 7 minutes’ extra cooking time.

Destalk the herbs and whizz them in a food processor until they are chopped, then add the cornichons and capers and whizz again. Pour the oil down the funnel, and then add the vinegar and sugar to taste, and season with the black pepper and the salt.

Score the lamb fat, by using a sharp knife to draw diagonal lines, this way and that, about a couple of centimetres apart and, using a pastry brush, paint the fat with a coating of the mint sauce, saving the rest to serve with the lamb. Arrange the racks in an intertwining arch, and put them into a tin and thence into the oven to roast for about 20 minutes, depending on size.

Serves 4–6.

MOROCCAN ROAST LAMB

Or how to make yourself feel basked in exotic, perfume-heavy sunshine when all about you is spirit-wizeningly cold and grey. For me, Moroccan is, so far, just a state of mind. In my defence, the crucial flavouring here is the very Moroccan ras-el-hanout, a musky, amber-coloured spice mix, heady with rosebuds, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, lavender, ginger, pepper, mace and, I’m not too modest to admit, nigella, which you can, if you’re lucky, find at the supermarket now (or direct from Seasoned Pioneers on 0800 0682 348). But then again, crucial is a flexible term: in place of the smokily poetic ras-el-hanout, you can add to the garlic and oil below, a teaspoon of turmeric mixed with a tablespoonful each of ground coriander and cumin and a pinch each of ground cinnamon and cloves – a no less magical substitution, I promise you.

1 leg of lamb, approx. 2.5kg

1–2 tablespoons ras-el-hanout

juice of 2 lemons

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

bunch fresh coriander, chopped

Make incisions all over the leg of lamb, and then mix the ras-el-hanout with the lemon juice, oil, minced garlic and coriander. Using your fingers, push pinches of the mixture into the holes. Rub the remaining aromatic paste over the lamb and then put it into a large freezer bag, squeeze out any air and then tie it up and leave it to marinate in the fridge overnight, or for longer.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6, and take the lamb out of the fridge to come to room temperature.

Put the leg of lamb into a roasting pan, squeezing any marinade out of the bag over the meat. Roast the lamb for about an hour and a half, by which time it should be aromatically blackened on the outside, and still tender and pink within. Let the lamb rest once it comes out of the oven for at least 15 minutes, though I love this a good hour after it’s come out of the oven.

I don’t want to be too bossy about how you should eat this: that’s to say, I feel the urge, but am trying to resist it. I love it with a bowlful of
moutabal
and another of Puy or other lentils and some mace-scented basmati rice. But perhaps my favourite way, is to slice it into straggly rags and put it on a plate alongside a bowl of
cacik
and a tangle of whole mint and parsley leaves stirred through with some fine half-moons of red onion and a squeeze of lemon juice, with some sheets of soft bread-wraps or pitta on the table, too, so that people can roll up or stuff their own loose, free-form sandwiches as they eat.

Serves 8.

BARBECUED LOIN OF LAMB, THREE WAYS

It’s not just that you can marinate this lamb one of three ways: to be frank you have a triple choice for cooking it, too; a hot grill or frying pan would serve no less well than a barbecue. In either matter, I leave the choice to you.

In all cases, the marinades should be enough for two 300g loins of lamb, which should be enough, carved thinly, for eight greedy people.

for the redcurrant marinade:

1 x 150g punnet redcurrants

1 red onion, chopped

juice of 1 large orange

1 clove garlic

generous grinding black pepper

2 scant tablespoons chilli oil

I got the idea for this back to front: that’s to say, I knew – hot on the trail of my
mint salsa
, – I wanted to eat a redcurrant salsa with the lamb; it then occurred to me that the fruit’s intense acidity would serve to tenderise the meat as well. It does, and beautifully. In fact, I use it for marinating chops in fairly regularly now, whether I’m making the salsa to eat with them or not.

To make the marinade, just put all the above ingredients in the processor and blitz. Tip into a freezer bag, add the lamb loins and tie up, expelling any air first. Leave for at least an hour at room temperature or stash in the fridge overnight.

Cook the lamb loins whichever way you find easiest. The important thing is to make sure the meat’s at room temperature before you start. And, since I love the meat really juicily pink within, I tend to give the loins no more than about 15–20 minutes’ cooking; if they’re very thin, less.

for the redcurrant salsa:

1 small red onion, chopped

150g redcurrants

small handful fresh mint

zest of 1 orange

Put the onion in the bowl of the food processor and then blitz until roughly chopped. Add the redcurrants and pulse till both onion and currants are chopped but not mush. Tip into a bowl, and chop the mint in the processor (or by hand) and add this into the onion and redcurrant mix. Grate in the zest of the orange and stir everything together to combine.

for the yoghurt and mint marinade:

250g Greek yoghurt

juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons dried mint

2 tablespoons green (or any) peppercorns, bruised

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together in a freezer bag and add the lamb loins. Marinate and cook as above. I tend to want to echo the flavours of the marinade in the accompaniment, by which I mean I usually make a bowlful of
cacik
to go with.

for the cumin rub:

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons ground cumin

1 tablespoon Maldon salt, crushed

4 tablespoons olive oil

Mix the above ingredients into an aromatic paste and smear the lamb loins with this. Sit them on a plate, cover with clingfilm and leave for about an hour at room temperature or leave to steep overnight in the fridge. Barbecue, fry or grill the loins, leave to stand for a few minutes before slicing thinly and eat as you might the
Moroccan roast lamb
or, indeed, any way you like.

LAMB PATTIES WITH HUMMUS AND PITTA

Think hamburger, Middle-Eastern style. And if this isn’t enough of a come-on, think again. I am mad for these pitta-sandwiches smeared with hummus and stuffed with red onion, mint, shredded lettuce and small mint-and-oregano flavoured lamb patties.

for the patties:

50g bulgar wheat

500g lean lamb, minced

4 teaspoons dried mint

4 teaspoons dried oregano

1 clove garlic

zest of 1 lemon

olive oil for frying

for the sandwiches:

approx. 8 pitta breads

1 or so Little Gem lettuces, shredded

large bunch fresh mint, chopped

1 red onion, halved and sliced into very thin half-moons

1 x tub hummus (approx. 300g)

1 x tub Greek yoghurt (approx. 300g)

approx. 1 teaspoon ground cumin

about 4 tomatoes

1 or 2 lemons

Soak the bulgar wheat by covering it with boiling water and leaving it for 15 minutes in a small bowl.

Drain the bulgar thoroughly, pressing the water out in a sieve and put it in a bowl with the minced lamb. Add the dried mint and oregano, mince in the garlic (I just grate it with a fine microplane) and the lemon zest. Stir everything thoroughly and then form into small walnut-sized patties, then flatten them slightly between your hands and arrange them, as you go, on a clingfilmed baking sheet or plate and let them stand for 20 minutes in the fridge to firm up. If you want to, you can cover them with clingfilm, too, and leave them in the fridge for up to 6 hours before frying them. I get, by the way, about 34 patties out of this mixture.

Fry the patties in a little olive oil until cooked through, and a beautiful golden brown on both sides. These are little, so it shouldn’t take too long: I’d reckon on about 4 minutes a side. The important thing is not to crowd the pan as you cook.

To make up your sandwiches, roughly proceed as follows. Toast or otherwise warm each pitta bread and cut a strip off one long side to open it, then stuff it with a salad of shredded lettuce, chopped mint and half-moons of red onion rings. Dollop into each gaping pitta (and you can do this before or after the salad stage actually) a couple of tablespoons of hummus mixed with 1 tablespoon Greek yoghurt and a pinch of ground cumin. Cram with four or five lamb patties, then squeeze in half a tomato roughly chopped and give a good spritz of lemon juice.