• lamb, cut into 2cm chunks, fat trimmed off
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• garlic clove, crushed & chopped
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• finely chopped fresh rosemary
• veg oil
• mixed salad leaves
• 200g yoghurt
• chopped mint
• half a cucumber, peeled & grated
• salt & pepper
• plain tortilla wraps or flat breads

Marinade the lamb chunks in the soy sauce, cumin, garlic, golden syrup & rosemary. Mix yoghurt with mint & cucumber – the original recipe says to de-seed the cucumber, but by the time you’ve peeled, de-seeded and grated a cucumber, you’re frankly not left with much. Life’s too short to de-seed cucumbers. What was it Dr Johnson said…?

Fry the lamb chunks in vegetable oil until cooked – 10 minutes perhaps. Set aside, clean the pan with a chunk of bread. Eat the bread. Nom. Then warm some tortilla wraps or flatbreads in the pan, fill with lamb, salad & yoghurt dressing. Simple and delicious.

It feels like summer is almost here, so while I was tidying up the garden I got a lamb stew on the go. It’s a bit like this one that I made a while back, with a few twists.

For the stew:

• 500g lamb
• 400g tin tomatoes
• harissa paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 6 – 10 dried apricots
• salt & pepper
• half an onion
• a few garlic cloves
• 4 small carrots
• water

Put the oven on at about 170C. Cut the lamb into big chunks – about the size of a piece of meat that you’d say ‘ooh lovely’ if it was served to you in a posh restaurant, but secretly you’d be disappointed. Rub a couple of tabelspoons of harissa paste, salt & pepper all over the meat and leave to marinate at room temperature for an hour or so.

In a casserole dish, quickly brown the meat, add the onion thickly sliced, garlic and whole carrots. When it’s looking brown all over, add the tomatoes and a can and a half of water. Add the apricots, halved, and bay leaves. Put in the low oven for a couple of hours, topping up the water after an hour if required.

For the cous cous:

• 250g cous cous
• salt & pepper
• 1 tsp vegetable stock powder
• dash olive oil
• half a teaspoon of sumac

Cover all the ingredients with boiling hot water, stir & leave until cooked.

For the roast veg:

• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 red onion, quartered
• 12 cherry tomatoes
• sliced butternut squash, skin-on
• 1 aubergine, diced

Coat the veg in olive oil, salt & pepper and roast along with the stew – keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t catch.

This was lovely in the garden with a glass of cold Riesling, with fish for the pescatarians. The lamb was sweet & spicy & melty. Delicious.

This is pretty easy and so so tasty.

• half a leg of lamb or 800g lean diced lamb
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 400g tin of chickpeas
• cinnamon stick
• small packet of ready-to-eat apricots roughly chopped
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
• salt & pepper
• water
• couscous – enough to feed your hoard
• vegetable stock cube or melt

Put the oven on to 190° C. If you have half a leg of lamb (rather than diced lamb), chop it into very large pieces – about 6 chunks maybe. I left the bone in for extra flavour. Remove as much of the fat as you can as you cut it – use a sharp knife or a pair of kitchen scissors if you like. I know fat adds flavour, but lamb is so fatty you can afford to remove a lot. Rub the ground spices (add more cumin and coriander if you like, but go easy with the paprika), salt & pepper into the meat and fry in a little olive oil in the casserole. When it starts to brown, add the garlic, apricots, tomatoes, cinnamon stick, drained rinsed chickpeas and enough water to cover the meat. Bring to the boil, cover, then put in the oven for about an hour.

Make the couscous up to the packet instructions – I like to add a veg stock melt or cube to the mix. Spread a layer of couscous over the casserole and bake or grill with the lid off for a further 10 minutes or so. Serve with some freshly-steamed green beans and crusty bread to mop up the juice.

• Whole bulb of garlic, unpeeled
• 2kg lamb, trimmed & cut into 5cm pieces. The recipe calls for leg but I wonder if cheaper cuts would work.
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 400g tin of tomatoes (or 6 plum tomatoes)
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried mint
• juice of 1 and a half lemons
• chips!

Simmer the garlic bulb whole in water for 15-20 minutes. When soft, drain and dry; squeeze each clove into a pestle & mortar and squish.

Heat the oil in a large pan, fry the lamb until browned on all sides. Add tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and garlic. Season with salt & pepper. Add enough water to cover stew and simmer for about 90 mins or 2 hours until lamb tender and sauce thick. Add the lemon juice in the last 15 minutes of cooking – the lemon juice really cuts through the greasiness of the lamb.

Serve with chips / French fries.

From Issue 2 of the excellent Jamie Magazine.

-o-

Lamb Lagoto Redux

Diced lamb is devilishly expensive, so tonight I tried to make this with lamb shanks instead. It was a huge success.

before going in the oven

Follow the method above, but use 2 lamb shanks and 2 tins of chopped tomatoes. Brown the shanks in a casserole dish, add all the ingredients and put in an oven at about 170 degrees C for a couple of hours. The meat just fell away from the bones and melted in the mouth.

I also cracked chips tonight – I can honestly say my chips were better than chip shop chips. I cut big, thick chips – cooked them for about 10 mins until soft on the lowest heat of my deep fat fryer (approx 160 C), put them in the freezer for half an hour then cooked them until golden in the fryer on its hottest setting (190 C). Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside – and not at all greasy. Perfect!

My deep fat fryer has been banished to the shed, so a stew like this is a very welcome thing on a cold night working down the smallest, coldest chippy in SE London.

after being in a low oven for a few hours