The Sunday roast a leg of Lamb

Roast leg of lamb

2.2kg of leg of lamb

1 leek white only

2 carrots

1 large piece of celeriac (or stalk of celery)

1 onion

A couple of tomatoes (I used 4 small ones, the last of Linda’s balcony harvest)

10 cloves of garlic cut 2 into 15-20 slithers

 5-6 salted anchovy filets in oil cut into 15-20 slithers

Bunch of mixed herbs

2 stalks of rosemary (picked into sprigs)

1 tsp. capers

400 ml of vegetable stock

100 ml of red wine

Remove the lamb from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature, trim any excess fat.

Roughly dice the carrot, leek, celeriac, onion put this into a deep roasting tin, peel the remainder of garlic cloves, ¼ the tomatoes and put into the roasting tin,

 

 

With a small sharp knife make small slits in the leg of lamb (15-20 depending on the size and how much you like garlic) push a slither of garlic, anchovy and a sprig of rosemary into each slit. 

 

 Chop the capers and add to the roasting tin, add the herbs (you can remove some of the thyme leaves and sprinkle over the  leg of lamb) 

 

 

 

Put the oven on to 225°C to heat.

Make your stock and add the wine, pour the whole lot into the roasting tin. Put the studded leg on top and drizzle all over with olive oil, give it a good grinding of salt and pepper.

Into the oven (rare 12 min per 450g – medium rare(pink) 15 min per 450g), cook at 220-225°C for 20 minutes and then reduce to 180° until it is cooked, if you used a meat thermometer for rare you are looking for 60° at the centre and for pink 65 - 70°.

 

I cannot help you for anything else, I only cook well done meat in a casserole, stew or Eintopf. I always use a meat thermometer when roasting, it takes the guess work out of the roasting process. There are two main types a round analog one with a long steel probe, this gives the oven temperature as well as the internal meat temperature, these are very cheap and well worth the few pounds – Euros investment. Then there are the digital ones, you can pay a hell of a lot of dosh for a real good one (I have an engineering one with about 5 different functions including measuring high temperature flue gasses) but even a simple one is very good and can be used for measuring freezer temperatures as well as oven temperatures

I keep a jug of water to add to the base of the pan in case it is evaporating too quickly (keep having a peek).

Remove the leg of lamb put it into a dish and cover with aluminium foil to rest, the resting process is as critical to good joint of meat as the rest of the cooking procedure, as it allows the juices that have been driven to the centre of the piece of meat to slowly permiate outwards making for a juicy, succulant joint

 

 

Pour the roasting tin liquids and vegetables through a sieve, into a sauce pan, pushing as much of the liquid out of the vegetables as possible.

Add another slug of red wine if you want a stronger tasting sauce, bring to a rapid boil and reduce by half, add 2 tsps. of redcurrant jelly to the sauce and thicken with a buerre manié (made by mixing butter and flour together at a ratio of 50/50).

When it is thickened to your liking, strain once again into a sauce boat. Serve with the lamb.

Traditionally roast lamb is served with mint sauce and we are very traditional.

A jolly good plate of meat.








The accompaniments, Yorkshire puddings, roast vegetables (parsnips, potatoes, beetroot and kohlrabi), glazed carrots and Brussel sprouts.

Linda Has also made a Damson crumble for pudding, I only had a tiny little bit honest Gov.   

 

Roast Mediterranean Vegetables with speck, feta and anchovies

Sometimes the very simple meals are the best and especially when the weather is warm and you can’t be fussed with cooking (BBQin’ being the exception). Here is a one that once prepared, you pop it in the oven and only visit it twice.

My take on Mediterranean roast vegetables with feta cheese.

Ingredients:

1 large courgette
2 red peppers
1 large onion
6-7 cloves of garlic
2 plum tomatoes (it can be any, but these I had at hand)
Handful of small diced feta with herbs (I bought mine already diced)
6 Anchovy filets
50g Bauchspeck (or smoked streaky bacon)
Handful of cepes (I always have a packet of the frozen ones from Lidl or Aldi in the freezer)
6 new potatoes, halved or large ones quartered
1 heaped Tablespoon of Herds de Provence
1 Tsp. of oregano
Enough olive oil to coat all of the vegetables (and a bit more for later)
Course Sea salt (I have some from the French Atlantic coast with herbs in it.
1 sprig of fresh Rosemary
2 sprigs of fresh Basil (I have the small leafed sort on my balcony)
Plenty of ground pepper
A grinding of dried chillies

Wash your veg.

Slice your courgettes lengthways, slice off the tops of the red peppers and remove the cores, cut into ¼s, roughly slice the onion, leave the skins on the garlic cloves (you can press the soft pulp out if you are lucky enough to get one of these little gems on your plate.
Put the speck, and cepes into the bottom of a deep roasting tin, then the tomatoes and red peppers, sliced courgettes, onions and garlic into the roasting tin(It matters not in which order you add the vegetables), sprinkle (pour) the dried herbs over the top, add the salt and pepper, grind the chillies (how much depends on your and/or your guests taste, pour in the olive oil and now mix so that everything is coated in herbs and spices (now you see why it doesn’t matter).

Cover with aluminium foil and put into the oven at 180°, make sure you have put your bottle of Aldi pink in the fridge for later.

Peel the spuds and put into salted water, bring to the boil, cook until just tender.

Open up a cold beer and go and sit on the balcony and read a book or listen to a bit of cricket or if not too hot go for a bike ride (1hr max).

After a good hour, have a look, the veg should be tender, remove the foil, watch the pinkies the roasting tin is bloody hot (I will show you the scares some time) add the potatoes and anchovies, sprinkle with the fresh herbs, olive oil and salt.

Put back into the oven at 230°C on the top rung and cook uncovered until the potatoes brown and the skins of the red peppers blister and go black.  Add the feta cheese and pop it back in for about 5 minutes.

Remove to a heat proof base

and spoon onto the plate, don’t forget the juices, the olive oil and veg juices have mingled with the feta and anchovies, it really is that easy and that fantastic, I had a nice stick of Mediterranean bread with olives and sundried tomatoes , you will require this to mop up the juices, before spooning out another plate full.

You could make this entirely vegetarian, by missing out the anchovies, feta and speck, but then you would be missing out on a wonderful eating experience. You can add any veg you wish, aubergines or those small long sweet pepperoni's, any thing you wish I think chunks of pumpkin would also go well!

I have enough left over for lunch tomorrow cold with bread and for an accompaniment to some grilled sardine’s tomorrow night.

Hestons (and mine ) real slow fore (three) rib beef

There was a thread on the wild food website about roasting a rib of beef joint, I thought I would present my effort as per Hestons 20 hour beef done for our cookery club diner..

I think that this was one of my successes that I am most proud of, not that it took a lot of prep or that it was especially demanding or difficult but because it turned out just as Heston said it would.

First make sure you have the best piece of beef that money can buy (you cannot turn a piece of an old milk cow into a good roasting joint and if that is all you can afford then try making a good stew.

I bought mine from a farmer that only raises beef cattle and I can watch them growing from start to finish, they feed naturally on grass and only in the deepest winter will they have hay as a suppliment.

The whole point in low temperature roasting is that if you keep the oven temperature at 60 degrees then it is impossible to dry your beef out and it will be juicy and tender.

I gave my forerib joint a good going over with a blow torch, this gets rid of any nasties still attached  to the outside and also gives it a nice browned crust

When it has been scourched all over (I have a good blow torch that does 1700 degrees so much more than any oven is going to get to.

Next push in the oven thermometer, I have an electronic one, but as I was at Lindas, we used her good old analog thermometal one. (it also proved that Lindas oven thermostat was perfect). I rested it on some spuds cut through the middle, this allows the heat to circulate all around the beast, rubbed it over with a bit of neutral tasting oil and gave it a good salting and peppering.

Now into the oven for 20 hours or a bit more, it doesn't matter as the inner and outer temperature cannot rise above the oven temperature of 60 degrees.

After the 20 or so hours removed, you can carve it straight away as the heat has not been high enough to drive the juices into the centre, they are evenly spread through out the joint.

Notice the cut from piece I cut to do a tasting, it is perfectly (for me and my guests) rare. If anyone needs it a bit more "done, then you can do it at 70 degrees

Presenting the beast prior to carving, it was perfect.

I will do it again when I am able to get a nice piece of grass fed beef.

Cheers

Dick

A life on the ocean waves.

Well hello my Tars!

Setting off into the morning sun

I was away doing a bit of fishing at the end of last week. 2 full days Thursday and Friday, it was on the Baltic on a converted minesweeper called "Simone".

Rods set and headinf for the fishing grounds

 The first day though good for some, wasn't so good for me. I caught 4 codling, but because they didn't meet the minimum size (38cm) I had to return 3, never mind, the one not sent back was a reasonable size.

Here are a couple of photos of the two trips, including a couple of eco friendly and a not so eco friendly means of sea travel that we met on the trips.

Friday was a different kettle of fish (pun intended) I caught 10 and just returned 3 so we had enough fish for our dinner party on Saturday.

The ever following gulls at filleting time

And a couple of young tars setting out on an old  baltic werry for an evenings messing about on the water.

Saturday evening we had friends around for a real British roast dinner

We had homemade asparagus and herb soup with a green rocket island topped with a poached quails egg.

A dozen quails eggs minus one

The minus one ready to be poached

         

The finished soup

Asparagus herb soup with a rocket island topped with a poached egg

Next was the fish and chips. Hestons thrice cooked chips, with goujons of line caught codling in a panko crust and Sole Bonne Femme with brown shrimp sauce.

Then was herb crusted roast beef, yorkies and all the trimmings,

A nice piece of well hung beef

Browning the beef

Pounding the herb crust with English mustard

The beef ready for the oven over a bed of root vegetables, stock and redwine

First into the oven at 220 degrees, reducing to 180 degrees after 20 mins until the inner temperature reached 70 degrees (to well done for my taste but we had guests)

Last but not least was a trio of summer puds.

Sorry no pics, this was Lindas section and she didn't take any.

Rhubarb and ginger crumble

Summer trifle

Home made strawberry ice cream

To quench the thirst (it was quite warm)

Plenty of wine., pic-poule, a nice crisp pink wine and a strong deep red  Burgundy

We watched last years Last Night of the Proms (the couple are going this year so we showed then a little taste of what to expect)

and so ended a very nice evening.

Sunday morning was out to Travemunde for a Birthday breakfast, it was a beautiful day until getting stuck in traffic on the way home. But all in all a very nice and enjoyable spring break.