KATKAT'S KITCHEN
RECIPES FROM KATKAT'S KITCHEN
Lancashire pancakes with berries and creme fraiche
In the old days before I lost six stone I used to eat Lancashire pancakes, which are oatmeal pancakes, with crumbled Lancashire cheese and bacon.Highly addictive, hugely fattening but ever so satisfying. I still love those oaty pancakes today but today I choose the healthier version, made the same way but served with fresh fruit and crème fraîche or yoghurt. If you are not on a diet they could be served with honey or maple syrup.
Dining with Dara: Oatmeal for dinner? Twin Cities chefs say yes
He grills ramps, which are wild onions, or asparagus, puts them on the savory oatmeal, and grates truffled pecorino cheese over the top. At Heartland, in St. Paul, chef Lenny Russo makes oatmeal pancakes, and tops them with creme fraiche and smoked …
minnesota.publicradio.org
Flip It Good: Tasty Pancake Recipes
I am always looking for interesting pancakes recipes and I found a whole bunch here on the Family Kitchen. I love the idea of healthy steel cut oat pancakes or berry streusel pancakes. My husband loved the idea of the bacon-stuffed recipe (!).
www.thedailymeal.com
Ingredients
450 g fine oatmeal
450 g plain flour
20 g yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
11/2 Litre warm water and milk mixed – I used Soya milk, but no reason you could not use flavoured milk.
Mix the plain flour and fine oatmeal with a little salt. In a separate bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm milk and water mixture and whisk until it becomes frothy.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients in a bowl, add the rest of the milky mixture, cover with a cloth and leave for an hour to prove.Pop a well-greased griddle pan onto the heat, and pour in enough batter to make a 15cm oatcake. Cook for 2-3 minutes on one side, before turning and doing the same on the other.
Serve with crème fraîche, berries and yoghurt.
Dark Chocolate Rolo Brownie
I always wanted to try a rolo cookie, although I have to say I don’t like the chocolate itself. The soft chewy caramel sounded great in a cookie.However, I realised that it would be bery hard to beat that fabulous photo!so I decided to try my hand at a dark chocolate rolo brownie.
Food Snots: Chocolate Rolo Cookies
Chocolate Rolo Cookies. Hey Everyone! Happy Monday!! Feeling back to normal. Which is great for me. Woke up this morning wondering what I would get to make today… I’m thinking either Blue Berry Muffins, or Cinnamon …
http://www.foodsnots.com/
peanut butter rolo cookies. – sally’s baking addiction
i found the idea to make peanut butter rolo cookies on Dorothy’s wonderful blog Crazy for Crust. she has a TON of droolworthy cookies & dessert recipes, so check her out! i changed up the basic cookie recipe a bit and used …
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/
Source: sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com via D’Lane on Pinterest
Dark Chocolate Rolo brownies
Ingredients for Dark Chocolate Rolo brownies
140g/5oz dark chocolate
225g/8oz butter
5 large organic eggs
450g/1lb brown sugar
110g/4oz plain flour
55g/2oz cocoa powder
Packet of Rolo’s
Method
Heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
Line a 20x30cm/8x12in glass roasting tin with baking parchment.
Gently melt the butter and the sugar together in a large pan.Take off the heat and beat in the rest of the ingredients.Turn into the roasting tin and bake for 30-40 minutes until the top of the brownie is firm but the inside still feels soft. Take out of the oven and cool in the tin. Cut into 5cm/2in squares when cool.
Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad
Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad are a perfect marriage and Asparagus and spring are as part of Andalucia as the Sierra Nevada mountains, sol y sombras and home made pork products. Eggs and asparagus are a match made in heaven. My idea of a perfect starter is the first asparagus of the season, fried quickly in olive oil until crisp and then dipped into a boiled egg. Occasionally though I need something a little more substantial and Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad ticks all the right boxes.
Eggs and Easter symbolise a lot of things, rebirth regeneration and hope, and I prefer to have my Easter eggs not as the chocolate variety. Here the asparagus and smoky bacon lardons are dressed with a sherry vinegar and walnut oil vinaigrette, over a mound of mixed leaves, with a poached egg on top with shavings of freshly grated parmesan. Unfortunately these days everyone is terrified of salmonella and they cook their eggs to within an inch of their life, the egg should be very soft, so the egg yolk becomes a second sauce.
Ingredients for Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad
For the vinaigrette
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon walnut oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
For the salad
4 cold extremely fresh eggs
2 slices of pan ciabbatta cubed and fried in garlic butter
20 asparagus spears, trimmed
2 strips of smoked bacon
3 large handfuls of mixed salad greens, rinsed and dried
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 handful of chopped toasted walnuts
Method for Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad
Arrange the salad leaves on a plate. Steam the asparagus for about 6 minutes until they are cooked, they should still retain a slight crunch, there is nothing worse than mushy asparagus. it does depend on how thick the asparagus spears are as to how long it will take, so check them after two minutes. The asparagus is the star here don’t ruin it before you start. Grill the bacon strips until cooked and then chop them finely and leave to go cold. Arrange the leaves on a plate, add the asparagus, cubed bread, bacon and walnuts. Poach an egg and arrange it gently over the salad and top with the freshly shaved slices of parmesan, then drizzle the oils and vinegar over the salad and season. The Andalucian way is to add the oil and then the vinegar and let them mingle, that is the way I like to do it. The more precise French way is to whisk the vinaigrette together nad then pour it over. My answer to that is why make more washing up!
Variations on Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad
Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad are the stars omit the fried bread. It can be made with a variety of cheese slivers, any nutty cheese such as Nutty cheeses like Comté or Gruyère, complement asparagus, but so does aged manchego. Sometimes I add cheese, sometimes not, as I said the Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad are the stars.
Chef’s tip
Pached eggs can be made ahead of time if you want to serve this for an elegant dinner party. When the egg yolks are just set, take them out of the water and drop them into a bowl of iced water to stop them cooking any further. They can be reheated in hot water for a minute or………….. To add just a touch more elegance to this dish, warm the cooked eggs in the bacon fat and toss some finely chopped walnuts over them. Bacon, Egg and Asparagus Salad is great for a simple elegant lunch. brunch or as a starter.
Andalucia on a Plate – Decontructing Patatas Bravas
Am I qualified to speak about Andalucia on a plate – you may well ask yourself. I have lived in Andalucia for nigh on thirty years and I am getting the point of what goes on most plates. I love Spanish food, its vibrancy, the strong flavours of chorizo, the taste of sun ripened tomatoes, the freshest ingredients cooked simply. Whilst watching Masterchef I saw a plate of food I had to try and recreate because it was to me Andalucia on a plate.
In this case what constitutes Andalucia on a plate is fried hake to be found in every single bar that serves food from Malaga to Seville, as well as roast Padron peppers and a roast red pepper, the black stripe is a black beurre blanc made from the ink of a squid. The pièce de résistance that will cause more comment than anything else is the final innocuous little element – the Patatas Bravas.
Patatas bravas is not a recipe that you would think would think would or could cause arguments. Well let me tell me you that in Spain wars have been fought over patatas bravas. It is not a simple argument, but a complex layering of flavours that differ all over Spain. Spanish food has been influenced over the centuries, by the Romans, the Phoenicians, and the Moors. Different regions have been affected more than others by the conquerers. For instance where I live in the city of Malaga I live not a hundred yards away from the original Phoenician capital of Malaga. Yet for instance many of the men who conquered the New world were born, they were more influenced by the introduction of tomatoes.
Homemade Hot Cross Buns
Homemade Hot cross buns
are an Easter tradition in our house. Then Hot cross buns are a tradition rather than a confection everywhere , they are made from bread dough and spices.You more or less get the picture of the history of homemade hot cross buns if you thinK that pancakes are made at the beginning of Lent to use up all the fruit and butter and Homemade hot cross buns have been made for hundreds of years for breakfast on Easter Sunday to reintroduce sugar fruit and spice into the diet.
I am sure everyone associates Easter with food, if not Easter eggs then Easter cake, or Easter bread or even easter hot cross buns. Hot cross buns are a rich yeasty golden dough infused with dried fruit and redolent with spices. Hot cross buns are cheap enough in the supermarket, but none of them stand up to the homemade hot cross buns, which are delicious hot from the oven. The tricky bit if there is a tricky bit to hot cross buns is the cross topping. Sweet shortcrust Pâte sablée pastry is the perfect topping, but it should be made in advance it is hard to work when freshly made. Pâte Sucrée has the perfect melt in the mouth flakiness for homemade hot cross buns. Sadly because they are so cheap to buy commercially many mums don’t bother to make homemade hot cross buns, and there are whole generations of kids who have never tasted them.
Top five kitchen gadgets for tasty hot cross buns
Top five kitchen gadgets for tasty hot cross bunsWhich? gives you a head start in the kitchen for Easter treats Easter wouldn’t be the same without tasty hot cross buns, so Which? has picked the top five kitchen gadgets to help you get baking over bank …
www.which.co.uk
Easter baking in the UK and abroad
Hot cross buns, which of course incorporate those other great luxuries of yesteryear – sweet fruits, peel and spices – have a sense of occasion that belies their simplicity: we look forward to their pillowy pockets of deliciousness with a zeal only …
www.telegraph.co.uk
I have been tasting different types of homemade hot cross buns, because lets face it what can you do with bread, fruit and spices. However Heston Blumenthal has made an infusion in Waitrose’s homemade hot cross buns of Earl grey tea, but in truth you can soak the fruit in anything. My Nana used to soak them in Mackeson, an Irish Stout. my take on homemade hot cross buns is the fact I like mine light and rubbing the fat into the flour as in Scones, makes them light and airy rather than the usual doughy dense hot cross bun.
Up to this year I have always used Nigella Lawson’s homemade hot cross buns as my basis, partly because she adds cardamom. However I omit her cloves as I dislike cloves and add more cardamom. Nigella’s original recipe for home made hot cross buns can be found here, the adapted one of mine is below. I have always been tempted to add chunks of dark chocolate to mine and this year I did, but can’t say it actually improved the recipe, let’s face it if Nigella herself had not added chocolate, then it is not worth adding.
ingredients for my adapted Homemade Hot Cross Buns recipe
150ml milk
50g butter
Zest of 1 large orange
5 cardamom pods roasted and seeded
400g bread flour
1 packet easy-blend yeast (7g)
125g mixed dried fruit
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 large organic egg
FOR EGG WASH:
1 egg, beaten with a little milk
FOR THE CROSS ON THE BUNS:
3 tablespoons plain flour
½ tablespoon caster sugar
2 tablespoons water
FOR THE SUGAR GLAZE:
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon boiling water
Method
Heat the milk, butter, orange zest, clove and cardamom pods in a saucepan then leave to infuse. I have gone rather cardamom mad recently, but this short aromatic infusion gives a heavenly scent to the little fruited buns later.
Measure the flour, yeast and butter into a bowl and add the spices, run together until the butter is like fine breadcrumbs. When the infused milk has reached blood temperature take out the clove and cardamom pods, and beat in the egg. Pour this liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients and add the fruit.
Knead the dough either by hand or with a machine with a dough hook; if it is too dry add a little more warm milk or water. Keep kneading until you have silky, elastic dough, but bear in mind that the dried fruit will stop this from being exactly satin smooth.Form into a ball and place in a buttered bowl covered with clingfilm, and leave to prove overnight in the fridge.
Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/220C. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
Punch the dough down, and knead it again until it is smooth and elastic. Divide into 16 balls and shape into smooth round buns. I wouldn’t start worrying unduly about their size: just halve the dough, and keep halving it until it’s in eight pieces, and use that piece to make two buns. Or just keep the dough as it is, and pinch off pieces slightly larger than a ping pong ball and hope you end up with 16 or thereabouts. Not that it matters.
Sit the buns on a baking parchment or Bake-O-Glide-lined baking sheet. Make sure they are quite snug together but not touching. Using the back of an ordinary eating knife, score the tops of the buns with the imprint of a cross. Cover with a teatowel and leave to prove again for about 45 minutes – they should have risen and almost joined up.Brush the buns with an egg wash, and then mix the flour, sugar and water into a smooth, thick paste. Using a teaspoon, dribble two lines over the buns in the indent of the cross, and then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
When the hot cross buns come out of the oven, mix the sugar and boiling water together for the glaze, and brush each hot bun to make them sweet and shiny.
This year my favourite homemade hot cross bun recipe changed totally, I found a recipe using mackeson in the same way that my Nana used to make them and they were perfect
Ingredients for Homemade Hot Cross Buns with Stout
325ml tin stout, preferably Mackeson
1½ tsp each ground ginger, cinnamon and mace
1½ tsp dry instant yeast
875g strong white flour, plus extra
325g raisins
175g mixed peel, or finely chopped dried apricots, or both
250ml hot black tea
1 large egg
50g melted butter
50g caster sugar, plus extra
1½ tsp salt
The night before, mix the stout, spices, yeast and 325g flour in a deep bowl. Put the raisins, peel and tea in another bowl. Next day, mix the egg and butter with the fruit, then stir into the beer and spice batter. Mix in 550g flour, the sugar and salt, and leave for 10 minutes. Lightly oil your hands and a 30cm patch of worktop. Knead the dough for 10 seconds, leave for 10 minutes, repeat twice more at 10-minute intervals, then leave for an hour.
Divide the dough into 100g pieces, shape into balls and place, touching, on a tray lined with nonstick paper. Leave for 90 minutes. Mix a little flour with water to a paste, and pipe crosses on each ball of dough. Bake at 200C (180C fan-assisted)/390F/gas mark 6 for 25 minutes. Mix a tablespoon each of caster sugar and boiling water, and brush over while hot.
Homemade hot cross buns are just adaptions of a bread dough and fruit made for Easter, they are similar to lardy cakes which are the same thing made with lard and no fruit. So a version of homemade hot cross buns can be made all year around
Beer braised beef
Beer braised beef is not the sort of meal I was planning to serve on Easter weekend, but it has been cold and wet in London and not the sort of weekend to serve Spring food. So by serving an Brussels recipe we have gone straight back to Winter food. Luckily I have been to the gym at least four times this week, so I can still look forward to my homemade hot cross buns tomorrow. As I used the complete brisket for this meal, it needs long slow cooking, the sort that makes the kitchen warm fragrant and a delight to be in on a cold afternoon.
Beer Braised Beef with Onions | Cookies with Boys
Beer Braised Beef with Onions. Here is yet another recipe from Pioneer Woman. I caught one of her episodes in the fall and was immediately smitten with a roast she slow cooked. While this is not the exact recipe, it is comfort …
http://cookieswithboys.blogspot.com/
Ingredients for Beer braised beef.
2 kg rolled brisket
2 large onions, sliced finely
200 g baby onions, peeled
2 tablespoons horseradish grated
10 g sea salt
50 g butter
750 ml dark British beer
250 ml beef stock
3 bay leaves
25 g tomato concentrate
25 ml olive oil
Roll the brisket in the horseradish, and then fry in butter and olive oil for ten minutes to brown the meat. The olive oil is to stop the butter burning and the butter is for flavour. Melt the butter in a separate casserole dish and fry the onions until dark and golden. Season, add bay leaves,tomato concentrate, beer and beef stock. Put into a casserole dish and cover with greaseproof paper to ensure that the meat does not dry out; put the lid on and cook at 150C for 4 hours. It is almost impossible to overcook this dish, the flavours slowly meld together. Take out the meat and let it rest for ten minutes and reduce the stock if necessary, then thicken with pieces of butter rolled in flour.
Beer braised beef is great with root vegetables added, and it can be made with stout or light beer, but Beer braised beef benefits from long slow cooking.
Maltesers Ice Cream Cake
Maltesers Ice Cream Cake ticks all the right boxes on so many levels it can be made with any chocolate bar, or even a mixture of candy. The flavour of the icecream can be changed and can the flavour of the base. I added nut to the ice cream, on this occasion I used almonds.
Text, Photos, and Ice Cream Cake, plus Easter candy, early!
In case you’ve missed it, I updated the Ice Cream Crunch Cake recipe with some better photos. This was the first photo before. And now this one is up there. I’m so encouraged when I look at those two photos.
http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/
Ice Cream Filled Chocolate Loaf Cake – Cookie Madness
Turning it into an ice cream cake was actually an afterthought, but it worked out so well I can’t wait to do it again and try it with other flavors. For this one I used I used Dreyer’s Samoas flavored ice cream and an easy chocolate …
http://www.cookiemadness.net/
Recipe for Maltesers Ice cream Cake
1 1/2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate fudge topping
1 1/2quarts (6 cups) vanilla and toffee ice cream, slightly softened
2 cups maltesers coarsely chopped
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup chocolate fudge topping
Additional maltesers to garnish
Heat oven to 350ºF.
Method for Maltesers Ice Cream Cake
Grease bottom and side of springform pan, 9×3 or 10×2 3/4 inches, with butter; lightly flour. In large bowl, mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add water, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Stir vigorously about 1 minute or until well blended. Immediately pour into pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool completely, about 1 hour.
Spread 1 cup fudge topping over cake; freeze about 1 hour or until topping is firm. In large bowl, mix ice cream and coarsely chopped candies; spread over cake. Freeze about 4 hours or until ice cream is firm. In chilled medium bowl, beat whipping cream with electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form.Remove side of pan; place cake on serving plate. Top with whipped cream. Melt 1/4 cup fudge topping; drizzle over whipped cream. Garnish with additional candies
Variations on Maltesers Ice Cream Cake
Maltesers Ice Cream Cake can be made from any type of chocolate bar, chopped up snickers bars, or even a mixture of candy. Twix bars will give a texture, but they can be decorated with chocoalte eggs on top.
Olive Oil Pumpkin and Courgette Bread
Source: pithyandcleaver.com via Catherine on Pinterest
Olive Oil Pumpkin and Courgette Bread
I love baking with yeast, and spices, and can’t wait to get my Easter Sunday breakfast of homemade hot cross buns. However for the moment I have to wait I restrict my hot cross buns intake for Easter Sunday breakfast, every year I bake them for breakfast. As I have been itching to bake for several days so my Good Friday breakfast was homemade bread.This bread filled the kitchen with the wonderful aroma of spices and fruit. There is something so exciting about spring baking
Unicornis Creations by Momma Mary: Very Moist Zucchini Bread
Very Moist Zucchini Bread. My favorite veggie bread use to be pumpkin bread until I found this zucchini bread recipe last year.
http://unicorniscreations.blogspot.com/
Olive Oil Pumpkin and Courgette Bread
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup Bertolli Classico or another delicately flavoured olive oil
1/2 cup water
2 cups pureed pumpkin
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 heaped teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 1/3 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 cup grated courgette
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup walnut pieces
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease your pans with olive oil.
Olive Oil Pumpkin and Courgette Bread
In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs. Add the olive oil, water, pumpkin, and sugar and whisk to combine well. Add salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and baking soda, and continue whisking until well blended. Add the flour and stir into the wet ingredients using a spatula or wooden spoon until just combined. Stir in the courgette, raisins and nuts.
Pour into prepared loaf pans and fill to about a half, to two thirds full. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool on a rack for ten minutes before removing from pan to cool completely.
Olive oil pumpkin and courgette bread is great to serve at any time, it does not have to be served at Easter or for breakfast.
Lemon Sponge Cake – the retro way
Lemon Sponge Cake
Most of the time when I am baking I do not want an elaborate cake, I want something for the family to sit around and munch at mid-afternoon when everyone congregates in the kitchen waiting for me to prepare dinner, and lemon sponge cake is perfect.
I have been eating lemon sponge cake since I was a child, my mother was not a great cook, she was not a bad one, but not that brilliant, but she could bake. Everyday she made fresh bread and scones for when we came in from school hot out of the oven. At weekend she made lemon sponge cake every Saturday morning. This Lemon sponge cake is a retro recipe because it is how she made it in the fifties, but if you want to add lemon curd you can. You can also make it more elegant by adding a lemon sponge icing, but for me because it is what I am used to I just love the plain lemon Sponge cake. My mother made lemon sponge cake the old fashoined way, she weighed the eggs without their shells and added the same weight of vanilla sugar, butter and self raising flour. T o weigh the weight of your eggs, weight the empty bowl, add the eggs and whisk
Mummy Mishaps: Zesty Lemon Sponge Cake
Zesty Lemon Sponge Cake. With Mothering Sunday just around the corner I have been thinking about what gift to get for my mum. I think it’s nice to show my her how much she is thought of and how thankful I am to have her in …
http://mummymishaps.blogspot.com/
Lemon Sponge Cake recipe
2 large organic eggs, beaten and weighted
Same weight of butter, at room temperature
Same weight of vanilla caster sugar
Same weight of self raising flour
Zest of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons lemon juice
self raising flour
Pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6
Method for lemon sponge cake
Line your baking tray with parchment.
In a bowl beat together the butter and caster sugar until they are light, fluffy and a lot paler. Gradually add the eggs, to the mixture, adding a little of the flour to help prevent curdling. Gently fold in the remaining flour until fully combined. Add the Lemon Zest and Lemon Juice.Put it in your baking tin. Cover the tins with baking parchment to stop the lemon sponge from drying out whilst it bakes. Bake in the oven for twenty minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Variations on lemon sponge cake
If the idea of lemon sponge cake does not appeal, it can be made with any other citrus fruit, such as blood orange, which gives the cake a wonderful colour, or orange, lime, or grapefruit. Some of my family like it with an alcoholic lemon cheese icing sandwiching the two layers together. if I am going to do that I increase the eggs to three and then cut the layers and add the alcoholic lemon ricotta icing.
Alcoholic Lemon Ricotta Icing.
125g Butter at room temperature
250g cold Cream Cheese
250g cold Ricotta Cheese
75g Sifted vanilla Icing sugar
Zest of 2 Lemons
1 tablespoon of Limoncello
Beat the softened butter until perfectly smooth in your food processor, if you skip this step you get an unpleasant goo of butter in it later.The whole icing is a bit grainy, because of the texture of the ricotta. Add the Cream cheese until combined and then the Ricotta cheese, then add the sugar. if it is too grainy then sieve it. Add the Lemon Zest, Limoncello and mix. leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours to thicken up and then either cut the lemon sponge cake, or layer two sponges with the icing. If lemon sponge is not your bag try this Normandy Apple Cake.
Roast Lamb With Anchovies
Roast Lamb With Anchovies
Roast lamb with Anchovies has to be with anchovies, but you may want to tone it down a bit.
Roast Lamb With Anchovies
Roast Lamb With Anchovies is a family meal but also one that can be used for dinner parties because it has such sophisticated undertones. I found the recipe below and liked the idea of adding capers, but I served it with a salsa verde rather than a mint salsa. The anchovies flavour the lamb but they also make a delicious jeux.
Fire and Food: Spit Roasted Lamb with Caper, Anchovy & Mint Salsa
For the spit roast: – Lamb leg, off the bone – 4-5 anchovy fillets – 4-5 peeled and squashed garlic cloves – 1 dollop of butter – Mint leaves, roughly broken up – Salt and pepper – Olive oil to rub on the outside – Kitchen string (!) …
http://firefoodie.blogspot.com/
Recipe for Roast Lamb With Anchovies
1 lamb leg, bone-in (about 2.75kg)
16 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon salted baby capers, rinsed, drained
2 handfuls of lemon thyme
75g butter, softened
Lashing of freshly milled black pepper
250 ml white wine
250 ml chicken stock
16 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salsa Verde
2 cloves of garlic
1 small handful of salted capers, soaked for 30 minutes, drained, coarsely chopped
2 large handfuls of chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
2 chopped spring onion or scallions
1 handful of chopped fresh mint leaves
lemon juice from half a lemon
2 teaspoons lemon zest
Good glug of extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes
coarse salt flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Method
Preheat oven to 140C.
Pierce lamb with a small sharp knife and press the anchovies deep into the flesh with the capers and some thyme leaves . Push the seasoning right into the incision, the lemon thyme and anchovies will not flavour the meat if it is poking out. Mix any remaining anchovies with the butter and smear over the top of the meat. Place in a roasting pan, smother with black pepper, pour over wine and stock and roast until meat is tender about two hours, topping up with extra stock if pan begins to dry out.As you can see I like my meat rare you may want to cook it longer, I have heard some cooks say the cooking time for Roast lamb with anchovies is as long as 4 hours.Taste the juices and see if any salt is necessary – it shouldn’t be, because of the anchovies. During roasting, the wine should have reduced and mingled with the meat juices and anchovy butter to make a delicious gravy. If it’s too thin, a quick bubble on the hob should improve the consistency.
To Make the Salsa verde
Salsa verde means green sauce from the Spanish, and in Mexico it is made from green tomatillos, but the Italians use herbs for their salsa verde. Salsa verde is a lovely rustic sauce, that accompanies strong tasting fish or meat. You may thinkl that salsa verde will overpower the roast lamb with anchovies, but the two flavours meld beautifully. The secret of a really good salsa verde is to hand chop the herbs, when you put them in a food processor they go to mush. Finely chop the garlic, capers, anchovies and herbs and put them into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, then slowly stir in the olive oil until you achieve the right consistency. Balance the flavours with freshly ground black pepper, a bit of salt and add more lemon juice for piquancy if it needs it.
Variations on Roast Lamb With Anchovies
Sometimes Roast Lamb with Anchovies, needs sweetening and I like to serve it with pomegranates but the salsa verde is a step to far, it is perfect with mashed potato with loads of butter and a dash of freshly grated nutmeg.However you serve your roast lamb with anchovies, it is perfect with spinach and garlic, or watercress.When you first start to cook roast lamb with anchovies, the aroma of fish is strong, but by the time the lamb is cooked, the anchovies have melted into the gravy.Roast lamb with anchovies is a common dish in the South Mediterranean.However they normally add rosemary rather than lemon thyme to their roast lamb with anchovies, but I dislike rosemary and prefer thyme.
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