Breast of Lamb Ste Menehould

How to turn a tricky, and hence cheap, part of a lamb into a starter or part of a collation of 'finger food'. Also known in the Brode household as the only way to cook lamb breast!

This recipe takes 12+ hours so do start the night before at least. 
There are three stages.

Slow braise

Heat oven to 140C fan (150C for non-fan)

In a roasting tray that will fit the lamb breast in one layer (cut it in half to fit if needed) put a layer of one chopped carrot and one roughly chopped onion along with a glass of white wine and glass of water. Add a few herbs (a bay leaf and/or sprig of thyme) and a few whole peppercorns. Put meat on top, cover and seal with foil and cook in oven for around 3 hours. The aim is that the bones will be very easy to pull out.

Debone and press

At end of the above, drain off the liquid and remove the veg. Leave meat in tray until it is at a temperature that you can handle. Pull out the bones.
Put back into the tray and put another baking tray on top - or something that covers the meat. Weigh down with whatever you have to hand (tins of beans are a good backstop) and refrigerate over night.

Cut, breadcrumb and grill
Take the pressed meat and cut into 2cm by 8 - whatever makes sense - cm slices. Brush each slice with Dijon mustard. Breadcrumb (as in press bredacrumbs into all surfaces). Brush with melted butter or spray with oil.

Grill on each side until brown (closer to dark brown than light)

Serve with tartar sauce. Now to find the recipe/notes on the last one I made.

Greek Lamb Shoulder

This recipe has the makings of being brill way of cooking shoulder of lamb. Needs tweaking to remove more fat (below is to try next time) Based on Gizzi Erskine recipe

Season shoulder of lamb. Heat oven to 200C. Heat casserole dish.
Finely slice 2-3 onions
Halve a whole bulb of garlic
Chop teaspoon fresh oregano
Open tin of chopped tomatoes. Measure out 300ml white wine and 600ml chicken stock.

Brown shoulder of lamb all over in casserole dish (note no oil).
Remove lamb from dish. Gently fry the onion for 5 mins (until beginning to colour). Add garlic
Add oregano, tomatoes and white wine and bring to the boil
Add the lamb and stock.
Cover and put into oven (Gizzi has uncovered) and turn down to 150C and cook for 3 hours.
Remove the lamb and put somewhere warm to relax. Let the juices sit for a few minutes and skim off the fat.

Add 300g orzo to the juices and put back into the oven for 30 minutes. Check after 20 and add water if getting too dry.

When the pasta is al dente, add zest and juice of half a lemon.

Pull the lamb off the bone and serve on bed of the pasta with a green salad. Grate over Parmesan if you really must!

Gooseberry cordials

Glut of gooseberries from our one bush. 12lbs so far. Two cordials made - lemon balm is favourite so far, although yet to try them with Prosseco!

Gooseberry and Lemon Balm cordial

Bring 400g gooseberries (washed - no need to top and tail), 280g caster sugar, 2 handfuls lemon balm leaves lightly crushed, one tsp citric acid, juice and zest of an unwaxed lemon and 1 litre of water to simmering point. Simmer for 10 minutes. Mash gooseberries against side of pan. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

Strain through a jelly bag or a piece of muslin over a sieve. Squeeze - this isn't for a jelly so I do mean squeeze - to get the rest of the juice etc out.

Pour into sterilized bottles (winebottles with screw tops that have been through a dishwaher cycle work well)

Serve diluted (not by too much) wth water, sparkling water or Prosseco. The recipe this is based on also suggest using as a marinade for mackerel.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cordial

You might spot a theme here!

Bring 400g gooseberries (washed - no need to top and tail), 280g caster sugar,  one tsp citric acid, juice and zest of an unwaxed lemon and 1 litre of water to simmering point. Simmer for 10 minutes. Mash gooseberries against side of pan. Remove from heat and after 45 mins add 5 large heads of elderflower (shaken to remove bugs various) and leave over night.

Strain through a jelly bag or a piece of muslin over a sieve. Squeeze - this isn't for a jelly so I do mean squeeze - to get the rest of the juice etc out. 

Pour into sterilized bottles (winebottles with screw tops that have been through a dishwaher cycle work well)

Serve diluted (not by too much) wth water, sparkling water or Prosseco. 

Oven baked potato croquettes

We bought the Hairy Bikers Eat For Life book last weekend. Highly recommend it - we've had many meals this week from recipes in the book. This included Rich Beef in red wine and Quick Chicken Cordon Bleu (I can't find these online). Mr B made third quantities of the former and it still fed 3 of us with some left over including some of the Colcannon. With a single chicken portion left over as well, we had a tapas meal yesterday evening!

On the tapas 'menu':

Chorizo and cherry tomatoes - slices of chorizo each with half a cherry tomato on top.
Rich beef in red wine
Baked leeks topped with slices of the chicken 'cordon Bleu'
Oven baked potato croquettes

All baked/reheated in hot oven. Served with green salad.

Oven baked potato croquettes
Heat oven to 200C
Mix any seasonings or additions (eg finely chopped cooked veg, meat, fish) with mashed potato. Add splash of milk to get creamy consistency. With your hands form into walnut sized balls
Put layer of breadcrumbs on a plate.
Dip the potato balls into milk and toll in breadcrumbs to coat. Put on lightly greased baking tray and cook for 20 minutes, turning at least once, until golden on outside.

Depending on what you add to the potato, these are a low fat alternative to the normal fried variant.

Portuguese chicken soup

Made the Hairy Bikers piri piri chicken for supper on Monday. Two further meals from it, a chicken and salad wrap and this Portuguese chicken soup.

Portuguese chicken soup
Make stock from carcass of chicken (the piri piri one adds an extra flavour). You need 1 pint.
Finely chop 1 red onion and gently fry in a small amount of oil until translucent. Add a crushed clove of garlic towards the end. Add the stock and 2 oz rice. Bring to rapid boil then cover tightly and turn off heat (or simmer until rice is cooked if you prefer that method). 5 minutes before serving add up to 8 oz shredded cooked chicken and juice of half a lemon. Heat through. Season to taste. I included a couple of dashes of tobasco.

The traditional recipes I found all have chopped mint in them. One variant to try when the mint is growing again.

Chicken enchiladas with salsa verde

Picked tomatillos - the paper cases masked the small size of many of them so didn't have as much as I thought. Made green salsa from it and chicken enchiladas for it go with (froze surplus of the former for future use).

Green salsa
250g tomatillos sliced
finely chop half an onion, 1 green chilli and handful coriander leaves
Put all into saucepan with 1tsp cumin, juice of half a lime, 250ml of water. Bring to boil then simmer for 10 minutes.

Chicken and sweet corn enchiladas
Heat oven to 180C
Chop two onions, fry over medium heat in tbsp of oil until translucent. Add two tins of chopped tomatoes and simmer until slightly reduced.
In the meantime in a separate pan fry 500g cooked chicken in tbsp oil with 2tbsp fajita spice mix (half a packet if bought by the packet!) for a couple of minutes and then add large tin of sweetcorn and fry for further couple of minutes.
Layout 8 tortilla wraps on a board. Put a couple of spoons of tomato and onion sauce down the middle each. Put the chicken and sweetcorn mixture on top. Wrap each one and put into a baking dish (lasagne dish). Cover with remaining tomato and onion sauce. Grate gruyere or cheddar cheese on top. Bake in oven for 20 mins or until cheeses is bubbling and browning.

Courgette and Feta Salad

Post Open Gardens BBQ earlier this month had a number of salads being brought along to go with the Pulled Pork and obligatory burgers and sausages. This is the one we were all asking for the recipe for. So courtesy of Anita - and based on original in Sainsbury's magazine:

5 medium courgettes thinly sliced lengthwise (original recipe had a medium aubergine in place of 2 of the courgettes). Toss in olive oil to lightly coat
1 tbsp dill (or fennel leaves) and 2tbsp flat leaf parsley chopped
Juice of a lemon
2tbsp extra-virgin olive oil from the jar of sunkiss tomatoes (below)
100g feta
30g sunkiss tomatoes roughly chopped
25g lightly toasted pine nuts

Griddle the courgettes - in batches - for 2-3 mins on each side until lightly charred and tender. Transfer to a large bowl and leave to cool slightly. When close or at room temperature, toss in the herbs and then arrange on a large platter. Crumble the feta and scatter over the courgettes along with the tomatoes and pine nuts over.
Whisk together the lemon juice and oil with some freshly ground black pepper and drizzle over.

If not served as part of a mass BBQ this salad is great with a green salad and hot pitta breads