Posts tagged carrots

Spiced Lamb, Charred Carrots, Green Coucous, Saffron Yoghurt

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Spiced Lamb, Charred Carrots, Green Coucous, Saffron Yoghurt

 

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I strongly recommend and encourage you to use Organic carrots here but if they’re homegrown, all the better. You can usually tell by their wispy piggy-tail-like ends – these bits always seem to taste the sweetest and nicest. Being simply boiled and charred in a griddle with lemon, the flavour has to good otherwise you’ll just end up chewing on a tasteless carrot stick….

The green couscous recipe is adapted from Ottolenghi and the remainder is a combination of flavours and textures I love and craved last weekend of August that raced by in the blink of my (luckily sun glass clad) eyes!

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Serves 2

Green Couscous

  • 100g cous cous
  • 150ml boiling water
  • 1 small onion, finely sliced
  • Ground cumin
  • 25g pistachios, chopped roughly
  • 1 small green chilli, chopped
  • Large bunch herbs: Parsley, basil, mint, coriander, dill
  • Good olive oil
  1. Place the couscous in a shallow bowl and season well. Add a very small knob of butter if you wish and then pour over the boiling water. Cover and set aside.
  2. Heat a bit of oil in a frying pan and gently and slowly fry the onion until soft and beginning to colour. Add a big pinch of cumin and fry for a few minutes before taking off the heat.
  3. While the onion is cooking, make the herb paste. Blend the herbs in a food processor, adding a slow stream of oil until blended nicely into a paste (The amount of oil you add here is up to you. The more you add the more moist the couscous will be).
  4. When the couscous has absorbed all the water, use a fork to fluff up the grains and add to the pan with the cumin onions. Add the green chilli and pistachios and finely stir through your herb paste.
  5. Taste and add a touch or lemon juice or seasoning or more olive oil to loosen.

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Carrots

  • 6-8 Organic/home grown carrots, cleaned
  • 1 lemon, zest
  • 1tbsp olive oil
  1. Leave the carrots whole and cook in simmering water for about 4 minutes or so but just until tender when pierced with a knife but still with lots of bite and a bit of crunch. Drain and leave to cool and dry a little.
  2. Heat a griddle pan until hot and add the oil.
  3. Griddle the carrots until beginning to char on the outside for a few minutes
  4. Serve warm with the couscous, with the grated lemon zest scattered over the top.

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Lamb Steaks and Yoghurt

  • 2 lamb leg steaks (You can also use lamb cutlets if you wish)
  • Ras el Hanout, Smoked paprika, spice mix (see here)
  • Olive oil
  • 150g plain yoghurt
  • Pinch saffron threads
  1. Sprinkle a good pinch of the dry spices and spice mix over your lamb steaks. Drizzle with olive oil and massage the spices into the meat. Set aside at room temperature.
  2. Put the saffron in a small cup and add 1 tbsp of hot water. Leave to infuse.
  3. Heat a little oil in a frying pan or griddle pan until hot.
  4. Fry the steaks for 2 minutes per side (for a piece the thickness of mine, about 2cm, for medium) and then wrap tightly in foil and leave to rest for at least 5 minutes while you assemble the dish.
  5. Take the saffron water (which should be a vibrate yellow) Pour into the yoghurt with some generous seasoning and stir to combine.
  6. When ready to serve, carve your rested lamb and serve on top of your couscous and carrots with a generous dollop of yoghurt. Drizzle with the resting lamb juices!

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Wine suggestion: Sijnn White 2012 (Chenin-Viogner)

I devoured this with a glass (or two) of Sijnn White 2012. South African, 84% Chenin Blanc, 16% Viogner. Stony fruits, peach, mineral and nutty flavour went deliciously with the spices in this dish.

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Pulled Barbeque Pork with Spicy Slaw and Flatbread

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Pulled Barbeque Pork with Spicy Slaw and Flatbread

I never thought clearing out my university fridge and freezer before the end of term could be so delicious. With the ever amazing help of Jamie Oliver’s barbeque sauce (see here), this slow cooked pulled pork shoulder was a greasily delicious end to a tiring term and brought a stomachful of summer hope to a cold March that has well and truly outstayed its welcome. A crunchy homemade coleslaw is a great and simple side without the sickly addition of buckets of mayo you often find your ‘healthy’ cabbage swimming in in the supermarket. Wrapped protectively in a snug wholemeal flatbread…….if only my dissertation had been on food….

  • 500g pork shoulder
  • 1 quantity of marinade (recipe here)
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 parsnip
  • 3 small raw beetroot
  • 500g yoghurt
  • 1 lime
  • 5 spring onions, finely chopped
  • 1 heaped tsp of the following mix of ground spices (toast 1tsp of each fennel, cumin, coriander and fenugreek seed with 1 cinnamon stick, 3 cardamon pods and 1 star anise in a dry frying pan until hot, fragrant and beginning to pop, remove and grind in a pestle and mortar until fine).
  • Bunch mint, chopped
  • Bunch coriander, chopped
  • Punnet of cress
  • 250g wholemeal flour
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  1. Begin with the pork. Cover the pork in the marinade in a large heavy based casserole dish and leave in the fridge overnight to infuse the flavours. The next day, preheat the oven to 170.
  2. Place a lid on the dish and slowly cook for 3 hours, basting in the sauce about 3 times.
  3. Meanwhile, make the coleslaw. This is easiest shredded in a food processor with the appropriate blade attachment or you can grate by hand.Grate the carrot, parsnip and beetroot into a large dish
  4. Add the chopped herbs.
  5. Combine the zest of the lime and the juice to the yoghurt with some seasoning and a tbsp of mayonnaise and the spice mix to make the dressing.
  6. Only before serving, dress the coleslaw in the dressing and scatter over the cress.
  7. For the flatbreads, mix the flour, cumin seeds, oil and 150ml warm water in a bowl and mix to form a ball of dough. Divide into about 6 pieces and roll thinly into discs. Before serving, fry each for a few minutes each side in a really hot  dry frying pan until beginning to char and puff up. Keep warm wrapped in a teatowel while you fry them all and finish the pork.
  8. After 3 hours, the pork should be nicely cooked and tender. Remove from the oven, spoon off the liquid fat that has melted from the pork and discard, leaving the remaining marinade.
  9. Leave to rest for about 20 minutes. Then, cut off any of the skin and fat and discard. Next shred using a couple of forks and mix int he remaining marinade left in the dish.
  10. Serve with the coleslaw and flatbreads and come extra yoghurt if you like!

For some light amusement, here is a picture of the first cut of pork from our first attempt at keeping pigs last year. Yes they were accidently overfed….yes that is 50% fat to 50% meat….and yes the butcher could not make sausages with those pigs because they were so obese. We have since refined our animal handling and will be dining on a model piece of pork this Easter, thankfully for our arteries (and theirs…RIP).

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