Poached Pear

So I had a food geek moment. I was going to make myself a salad to have with some of my duck prosciutto, but then I got this idea, the prosciutto would probably go really nice with pear, walnuts and cheese, a good classic combination. It got worse, maybe I wanted a cooked texture to the pear, I could poach it, add another flavour to it, heck, I know, I could totally sous vide that pear! Somehow I didn’t really manage to get the brake on that idea before it came out. Research had started, and it seemed reasonably easy, 2–3 hours at 75ºC, and I’d have a poached pear, easy enough, just keep an eye on a pot of hot water for 3 hours, I had nothing better to do, total food geek brain take over, sanity had left the building.


I don’t do it on purpose, sitting around racking my brain trying to come up with something convoluted and drawn out, my inner food geek is just waiting for the smallest opportunity to escape, much like with the 3 day wait for the pork cheek confit, or making dosa, I had the idea to make the dish, I just had no idea it would take 3 days, and to smaller extents pork hock cake, kai kem eggs or kimchi. It’s usually a passing thought or idea, and the next thing I know I’ve started making something that may take 3 days before I get to eat, or in this case set myself up to babysit a pot of hot water for 3 hours carefully nursing the temperature.

But I’m not complaining, I relish in it, spending hours in the kitchen, waiting and hoping the dish will turn out, that what started out as an idea will be edible and tasty, and that the sacrifice of time and effort will be worth it, and I’ll tell you, the results don’t always match the effort. But if I were to be disheartened after every failure, I doubt I’d ever set foot in a kitchen again, failure is an opportunity to learn from what went wrong, correct and improve on ideas. In saying all of that, the pears turned out great.

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things - T. S. Eliot.

Ingredients
100 grams Butter (unsalted)
50 ml Brandy
2 pears

• Emulsify the brandy and butter together, use a food processor or stick blender.
• Peel the pears, and place in separate vacuum bags with half the butter mix in each, then seal. You could use a zip lock bag, and remove as much air as possible if you don’t have a vacuum sealer.

• Bring a large pot of water to 75ºC.
• Place bags in the pot and cook for 2–3 hours at 75ºC.
• Keep the flame on minimum and adjust as needed.
• If not serving immediately, transfer the bags to an ice bath to halt the cooking, and reheat in hot water when ready.

Visa Wellington on a Plate is just around the corner and I had the privilege of being able to attend the launch event. It was great to finally meet some fellow bloggers and tweeters, and people from the industry, eat some great food thanks to Ruth Pretty, and down a few good wines. But like all things, nothing good comes for free, and putting aside my absolute terror of public speaking, I’m on stage doing a Peecha Kucha presentation at the City Market event. Which I hope, should be entertaining, if not just for the fact that I tend to talk in half formed thoughts and leave whole ideas in my head and stumble out words in random order from my mouth.

Stuffed Pig's Trotter

I’ve been meaning to make this dish ever since I got my hands on Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, the recipe jumped out at at me as I read my way through the book, a challenge to make something I’ve never eaten before, and it also sounded pretty damn delicious. Not everything went entirely smoothly, in fact it rather felt like the world was conspiring against me and my attempt to make this recipe. For the life of me I couldn’t get my hands on caul fat, I found wholesalers who had frozen blocks of it, but they wouldn’t sell to individuals, several butchers (including my local) couldn’t or wouldn’t get it in, I rather hope it was the former. Another hurdle, which I hope was just a misunderstanding on my butchers part, was their refusal to give me a trotter that wasn’t just the hoof, as that is a how they sell trotters, and they argue that any more leg would damage the hock, which in my opinion is a load of hock, to get what I wanted I swallowed the bitter pill and took the trotter with the hock still attached. So I had to add a little more butchery to the whole process, bisecting the leg at the appropriate joint, and hey, no damage to the hock meat, surprise, oh well, c'est la vie.


With what I thought was the the hard part over and done with, I resigned myself to the fact I wouldn’t get my hands on any caul fat, so the finished dish would be a bit different than expected, a little less crisp. I set about working my way through the initial, namely de-boning the trotter, a doddle I thought, I had watched youtube videos, I had downloaded skeletal diagrams, all in preparation, I tell you what though, no amount of research could've prepared me for the chore of deboning the first trotter. It took a while, a long while for the size of the job, a small little hoof with a couple of bones, knuckles and a crap tonne of tendons. But in the end I got it done, and the skin was still intact. With a heavy sigh, I set about on the next trotter, which to my surprise, and all the skills of a master butcher I'm sure, I got it deboned in about 2 minutes, that was at least million times quicker than the first.


With the difficulties of deboning behind me, I took the now limp trotters and liberally salted them, placed them on a dish, covered and retired them to the fridge. The bones that were extracted from the trotters (and the extra I had from above the hocks) got placed in my brand new 16 litre stock pot, which I got for my birthday (I am easily pleased), along with some stock vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, a little salt, covered with water, and set to simmer for 2–3 hours, skimming off the scum that rises to the top.


Feeling resilient, I set about cleaning the kitchen down, and then managed to relax with a cold Ritzling that had just arrived in the post, along with my invite to the programme launch of Visa Wellington On a Plate. So for the next couple of hours I pottered about, sipping wine, skimming stock, watching some Miami Vice (a guilty pleasure). Finally when the stock was done, it got strained through some cheesecloth and set aside to cool.


As you may of gathered by now, this is a bit of a long-winded process, and if you’ve read much of my blog, you’ll probably notice, it happens often. But soldiering on, when the stock is cool, take the trotters from the fridge, thoroughly rinse off the salt, and pat dry. Place the now dried trotters in an ovenproof dish, surround with one heads worth of peeled garlic cloves, and pour in enough 50/50 mix of red wine and stock to cover the trotters. Cover with tin foil, Cook for 3 hours at 175ºC.

After the allotted time in the oven, remove the baking dish, and allow it to cool, but not so long that the liquid sets to jelly. Carefully remove the trotters and set aside. I had a small issue of the trotter skin splitting, I’m not too sure why it happened, I think maybe the oven was a little hot, but the onset of depression, and thoughts of all my hard work gone to waste were quickly set aside, and I pressed on, no damn trotter was going to defeat me! I’d just simply reshape the skin around the stuffing, no biggie.

While the trotters relax on the bench, cooling down to handleable temperature, the stuffing can be made. It’s a simple mix of boiled potato (I used agria) passed through a ricer to make a smooth mash, mixed with a couple of diced shallots that have been sautéed in two good sized tablespoons of butter (or duck fat) until translucent, but not brown. When everything is cool enough so that you won’t get third degree burns, carefully start stuffing the trotters, reshaping them to their original form. If by luck you have caul fat, Mr. Henderson advises not to overstuff the trotters, as the potato will swell when cooked. So in saying that, if you have caul fat, wrap the trotters tightly in the fat, trim off any excess, place on a dish, cover and refrigerate overnight. But as I mentioned earlier I didn’t have caul fat, so I lightly oiled some aluminum foil and placed the reshaped trotter near the edge and carefully, but tightly rolled the trotter in the foil, maintaining its shape and not pushing out any stuffing, it then got a layer of cling film and a rest in the fridge overnight.

The trotters wrapped and in the fridge and the kitchen in need of another clean up, I stored the cooking liquid from trotters in a container in the fridge destined for a sauce. I must be a glutton for punishment, the kitchen was cleaned down again, and then I set about making dinner for that evening, as the trotters wouldn’t be ready till the next day.

The final stretch is painfully simple when compared to the rest, remove the trotters from the fridge, heat the oven to 200ºc, place an oven proof sauté pan on the heat, and fry the trotters until brown all over (if they’re in foil do make sure to unwrap them first), then place the pan in the oven and cook for about 20 minutes. Easy huh, well there are accompaniments to sort out, sautéed savoy cabbage, a few pickled rhubarb slices, and a sauce to prepare, a red wine reduction with shallots and the reserved cooking liquid (now jellied), strained and enriched with butter.


It made quite a dramatic plate of food, the hoof stained dark with the red wine set against the bright green of the cabbage, the flavour didn’t disappoint either, rich melt in the mouth porky skin with its fat melted into the mashed potato, the sauce enriching it and making it very indulgent, finally a nice sharp bite of rhubarb snapping it all back to reality, and alas the plate was empty far too soon. Even the other half managed to get over the fact there was a foot on her plate.

Cardamom palmier

I had a lot of leftover puff pastry after topping off my pies, instead of putting it in the freezer and forgetting about it, and only finding it when I have a dig around the tiny tiny freezer some months later, I decided some sweet buttery pastry cookies were in order. It is a great way to use up leftover pastry, or a good excuse to make some pastry.

Sugar Mix
¾ cup sugar
1–2 tsp ground cardamom, depending on personal taste (grind your own for the best result)
1 tsp salt

• Preheat the oven to 190ºC.
• Combine all the ingredients and mix well in a bowl.
• Roll out the pastry into a rectangle, using the sugar generously to prevent sticking, much like you would with flour.
• Sprinkle sugar over the pastry, coating it evenly.
• Firmly roll up one edge of the pastry into the center, and repeat with the opposite edge.
• Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for about 20 minutes, so the pastry has a chance to firm up.
• Cut 5 mm slices and arrange on a baking tray. They will spread slightly so leave enough space around each to allow for this.
• Bake for 10 minutes, then sprinkle with sugar.
• Bake for about 10 minutes more, or until golden brown and crisp.
• Cool on a rack, and when cool, store in an airtight container.

Rhubarb creaming soda

Nothing beats ice cold soda on a hot summers day, sun beating down, creating hazy mirages on the asphalt. OK, so we’re in the throws of winter, and the only thing beating down is rain and the haze has been replaced with actual pools of water, but nothing is stopping you from cranking up the heater and pretending!

I have rediscovered creaming soda, I recall having it several times throughout my youth, but always with disdain, a kind of “What the hell am I drinking!”, but I think it was the brand and low quality of the drink rather than the concept of creaming soda itself. But now a complete convert having tried proper creaming soda, tasty almost burnt sugar with strong vanilla. Having a carbonation rig at home (à la sodastream), I set about creating my own creaming soda syrup with—seeing as it’s winter—a rhubarb twist.

The below measurements could easily be multiplied up if you wanted to make a larger batch.

250 grams of rhubarb sliced
150 grams of sugar
50 grams of sugar
250 ml of water
5 ml vanilla essence, or replace the sugar with vanilla sugar
half a lemon

• Macerate the sliced rhubarb with the larger batch of sugar, and leave it for about an hour, or until it has softened and given up its juices.
• In a pot set over medium heat melt the smaller batch of sugar (with a dash of water) until it has turned a dark caramel and is mere seconds away from burning. Halt the cooking by carefully pouring in the remainder of the water.
• When the caramel has dissolved into the water, add the rhubarb, juices and all.
• Simmer over a medium heat until the rhubarb has completely broken down, about 10 minutes.
• Pass through a cheesecloth lined sieve into a bowl, add the lemon juice and vanilla and stir.
• Let it cool, bottle, or jar the syrup and refrigerate.
• Add the syrup to sparkling water, adding more or less of the syrup depending on how much of a sweet tooth you are, a 1 to 5 ratio seems to work well for me

Dashi with Miso noodles and Hamine egg

Sometimes an idea stays dormant in my head for quite awhile, in fact this one has managed to stick around since august last year. I came across Hamine eggs on a post about hacking electric pressure cookers Dave Arnold had written for Cooking Issues, it was a small part of the whole article but something about those light brown eggs drew me in, I knew I had to try them. The idea got locked away into the ‘will try it eventually’ part of my brain, waiting for something to bring it to the forefront again.

We had a long drive to do a little (as possible) work on a farm in the weekend, I took along Ideas in Food to read on the way up. Flicking my way through, reading what caught my eye, I came across a recipe for miso noodles, they sounded delicious, and then the thought popped into my head, I could make a cool miso soup, where the miso is noodles, I had a bit of Kombu in the pantry to make Dashi with, and had just bought some blond miso. But noodles and Dashi weren’t enough for me, so I was thinking what else to have with it, do I want to take hours cooking pork, or some shredded chicken or fish, I could speed up the pork with the pressure cooker, or eggs! Hamine eggs would be perfect to try with the noodle broth.


Hamine Eggs
Boil eggs for 5 minutes and then cook on high pressure for 50 minutes
Let the pressure drop naturally, otherwise the eggs may explode. They can be done traditionally too, but take 24 hours or so.


Shitake Dashi
2 Litres Water
25 gram Kombu
20 grams Shitake
1 bunch of spring onion

• Bring the water up to 65°C and steep the Kombu for 1 hour, holding the temperature at 65°C
• Pulverise the Shitake into a powder with food processor.
• Simmer the Shitake powder and spring onion (whites and roots, reserve the green part) for 60 minutes.
• Strain, season with fish sauce and light soy sauce.

Miso Pasta (Ideas in Food)
1 egg
55 grams miso (blond)
225 grams flour
75 grams water

• Mix the egg, water and miso in a bowl.
• Pour the flour into another bowl, make a well in the centre and pour the liquid in.
• Mix together, forming a dough, tip out onto the bench and knead for about 5 minutes.
• Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
• Divide the dough in two.
• Roll out one half using a machine, or by hand.
  
• Run through a pasta cutter.
• Set noodles aside and work on the other half of the dough.

Cook the noodles for a couple of minutes and transfer to a serving bowl, top with a egg cut in half and sliced greens of the spring onion, ladle over the Dashi.

When life gives you onions…

My parents generation have lead us to believe pressure cookers are time bombs of boiling hot lentil stew, ready to spray every wall of the kitchen and give all occupants 3rd degree burns. Nothing could be further from the truth, modern cookers have built in safety measures, and with correct use, are about as likely to explode as your kettle. They are an invaluable piece of equipment in the modern kitchen, and to make life even easier there are electric models available that don’t require constant attention, and won’t take up valuable stove space (although do a little research, you need a model that goes to 15psi, Russell Hobbs version does).

The idea started something like this... “What would happen if I put a whole lot of onions, a little wine, and splash of cognac into a pressure cooker”. It was about 1am, so not the ideal time to start cooking, but the idea was jotted down for the next night's meal. I know that when you pressure cook onion, it becomes mellow and sweet, and loses the harsh onion sting. Along with the pressure cooked onions, I decided to slowly caramelise sliced onion the traditional way, to really beef up the onion flavour. At least there was backup in the fridge if the whole thing turned pear shaped.

You don’t need to add a lot of liquid when pressure cooking, as it’s a closed system, so hardly anything will evaporate off, and all of the liquid from the onion will be pulled out, so only the bare minimum should be added, and added for flavour.


Ingredients
2kg Brown onions
30 ml Brandy
250 ml White wine

1. Slice the head of the onions off, slice in half and peel.
2. Thinly slice the onions, a mandoline makes quick work of this.

Pressure Cooker

1. Melt a knob of butter in the pressure cooker, when sizzling add a handful of onions and sweat slightly.
2. Add the brandy and let it cook off the harsh alcohol bite.
3. Pour in the white wine, and add about two thirds of the remaining onions.
4. Season with some salt and pepper.
5. Cook on high pressure for 1 hour.

Frying Pan

1. In a heavy based pan melt a little butter on the lowest heat and add the remaining onions.
2. Season with a little salt.
3. Let it cook on low heat, occasionally stirring, until the onions have caramelised. It will take about 40 minutes on the lowest heat, it’s a long time, but very much worth it.

Serving Up

1. When the hour is up, use a quick release on the pressure cooker.
2. Purée the pressure cooked onions, and pass through a sieve.
3. Stir in the caramelised onion, saving a bit for garnish.
4. Enrich the soup with a little butter, and adjust the seasoning.
5. Ladle into warm bowl, garnish with some caramelised onion and sliced herb.
6. Serve with some crusty bread.

The soup is rich, sweet, savoury and very very moreish. If you wish, you could loosen the soup with a good beef stock.

This recipe was originally posted by me on Localist

Puff Pastry

Plans dreamed up during the day in the odd moment I have spare, rarely end up as that night's meal, either lack of ingredients or time. I had great plans of making a dashi-chicken broth, whipping up some of McGee’s alkaline noodles, and serving with a hamine egg and shredded chicken, but it just seemed a bit too much for a Monday night after work. So instead I whipping up a couple of oxtail pot pies, a thick rich stew topped with a pastry shell.

The stew was a pretty simple, chuck together of oxtail, red wine, swede, potato, carrot, onion, garlic, anchovy, brandy, caraway, bay leaf, thyme, mustard, salt and pepper. Just brown up the meat, then the onions, deglaze with the brandy and wine, then add the rest, put it in the cooker on high pressure and wait, or simmer away on a stove until the meat is tender and the cooking liquid reduced to a thick luscious gravy.

So while the meat was cooking, I got onto the pastry. I’ve never made my own puff pastry, I make shortcrust quite often, but I always thought puff must be hard, anyway I had the idea of pot pie, I wanted a pastry crust, and like heck I was going to buy it. After some research, I was pleasantly surprised just how easy it seemed, the main theme I read, was to make sure to keep the dough cool, so the layers of folded pastry don't meld into each other. Apart from that it seemed like any other pastry, just folded and rolled a bit more.

Ingredients
200 grams Flour
1 tsp Salt
200 grams Butter (unsalted)
120 ml Water (Cold)

Dough

1. Sieve the salt and flour into a bowl.
2. Work the butter into the flour with your fingers, you want a large bread crumb type texture but still have some large pieces of butter in there.
3. Pour in about half of the water and work it into the butter/flour mixture, adding more water if needed, you want a firm dough that's not too sticky.
4. Cover and put it in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Rolling
Roll the dough out in one direction, keeping the edges straight, and trying to make it as rectangular as possible.


Fold the bottom third up, and then the top third down, and roll out again to the original size. Repeat two or three times more, on the last repetition stop before re-rolling, cover and place in the fridge for another 20 minutes. If the dough gets too soft during the rolling process pop it back in the fridge for a couple of minutes.


Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to a couple of millimeters thick. Cut out the desired shape with a sharp knife, you don't want to pinch the edge together with a dull knife as it won't puff properly.

The amounts in the above recipe was more than enough for the two pies, and a healthy number of Palmiers.

Kai Kem Eggs

I’ve become a twitter addict, I have found so much inspiration from the tweets of others, chefs posting their latest menu ideas, or plates, fellow bloggers tweeting about their latest post, NPH bringing on the food-porn, or in this case @chezpim putting out a casual tweet about picking up some marvellous looking duck eggs at her local market—making me thoroughly jealous in the process—and her plans to make Kai Kem eggs. Having absolutely no idea what Kai Kem eggs were, I educated myself a little on Google, and shot a tweet back, asking her what one does with Kai Kem eggs.

Kai Kem eggs are traditionally made with duck eggs, taking advantage of their large rich yolks, but good free range organic chicken eggs will get the job done, and for a first try probably the cheaper easier option. But I will be keeping an eye out for some duck eggs for my second batch.

So, want something different for your next fiery hot green curry, or maybe something new to top off that congee? Well with a little preparation, and 3 weeks patience, you can have some lovely salted eggs (Kai Kem), a traditional Chinese dish adopted in Thailand as an accompaniment to spicy green curries, johk(similar to congee, a thick rice soup traditionally eaten at breakfast), or simply served as a side, sliced in half, scattered with sliced chilli and diced shallots, topped off with a good squeeze of lime juice.


The ingredients are pretty straightforward, eggs, coarse sea salt and water. The important thing is to completely saturate the water with salt—dissolve so much salt in the water that no more salt will dissolve (about 35 grams per 100 ml).

Ingredients
6 Large Chicken eggs (or duck eggs if you’re lucky enough to have them)
1 Litre Water
350 grams Coarse sea salt (not iodised)

There are two methods to dissolve the salt.
1. Bring the salt and water to a simmer until all of the salt has dissolved, and no more will dissolve (hot water can take more salt than cold), then let the water cool down to room temperature.
2. Or my preferred method, whisk the salt into the water in a bowl on the bench and keep whisking until no more salt dissolves. It’s a little more work, but you don’t have to wait for the water to cool down.

Carefully place the eggs in a large jar or container, and then cover with the cold salt-water, making sure all the eggs are submerged, I ended up cutting up a plastic plate that fit under the rim of the jar to keep them under water.


Seal or cover the jar, and leave it in a cool dark place for 3 weeks, make sure to label the jar with the date.

After the long wait, and possibly forgetting all about the eggy goodness tucked away in the back of the pantry, drain the eggs and carefully remove from the jar.


You can now either put them in a very well labelled egg carton in the fridge, and they’ll keep pretty much indefinitely (but I’ll say 3 months), or you can cook them and then keep them in the fridge.

When you are ready to eat the salty egg, simply fill a pot of water, place in however many eggs you need, bring it to the boil, and simmer for about 15 minutes, yep really 15 minutes, I tried to be a smart-arse on my first go and cooked it like a regular hard boiled egg, didn’t turn out so well. When cooked run the pot under a cold tap until the water is cool and let the eggs sit for a while.

My favourite way to have them (so far) is as a side to a hot green curry, sliced in half, scattered with sliced chilli and spring onions, topped off with a good squeeze of lime juice and maybe a few coriander leaves.

P.S. Yes those are some twin eggs, so were the other five in the carton of six, I must be due some crazy luck!

Hollandaise

With mother's day coming up this weekend, it’s the perfect time to bring out the big guns of breakfast/brunch, eggs benedict, warm crispy toasted english muffin, topped with slices of ham (or montreal if salmon is more your thing, and if you must florentine subbing in spinach), a perfect poached egg perched on top, and lashings of that ever indulgent sauce, hollandaise. To the uninitiated, the thought of making hollandaise can seem a little daunting, but I feel I have a method that greatly reduces the risks of failure and is a doddle to make. Just don’t forget the hollandaise is all that stands between a divine brunch and a short sharp trip to the bin, so pay attention when making it.

With only three ingredients, using the best you can find makes a world of difference. Free range eggs are a must, definitely unsalted butter, and nice ripe lemons that aren’t too acidic. The lemon juice plays an important part in the sauce, it not only cuts the richness of the butter, the acid also alters how the proteins in the yolk interact, giving it a little more tolerance to the heat.

Ingredients
30 ml (2 tablespoons) of Lemon Juice
2 egg yolks (freeze the whites, they’ll last about 3 months)
170 grams Unsalted butter

Method

1. Melt the butter over a low heat, making sure not to let it brown, the butter should be quite warm.
2. Get a pot on the stove with a little water on to simmer.
3. In a bowl whisk to together the egg yolks and lemon juice. They should increase in volume, thicken and turn pale.
4. While still whisking, slowly, drop by drop to begin with, pour in the warm/hot melted butter, whisking constantly until all of the butter has been emulsified.
5. If the sauce is not to the thickness you desire place the bowl over the simmering water and whisk until thick, be careful not to get too much heat into the sauce.
6. Pass it through a fine mesh sieve.
7. Finally taste and season it with salt and white pepper.

Tips

• The eggs need to be at room temperature, as egg yolks are most effective as an emulsifier when they are warm¹.
• The average egg yolk is 17 grams, or approx 30% of the weight of the egg. If you’re a food geek like me, weigh your eggs and then multiply by five to get the amount of butter you need.
• Infusing the butter with some tarragon while it melts, and adding some of the chopped herb at the end, makes a great sauce for poached salmon

1. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Harold McGee, page 633.

Slow lamb roast

You can roast a pork belly for a few hours at 180ºC and you'll end up with some pretty good meat with great crackling, or you could cook it forever, as I have done in the past, or even follow David Chang's method of 6 hours or so uncovered basting now and then (Lucky Peach, Issue #2, page 121). You can confit your meat at 130ºC for 3 hours, and have pretty good results, you won’t be complaining about what you're eating, or you could confit it at 90ºC, or even 70ºC for 12 or 24 hours and have great results. There isn't really any extra effort involved, just a bit of extra time, or in some cases a lot of extra time, but it is passive, it doesn’t require you to be in the kitchen.

The idea of not having enough time to cook is being pushed on us more and more these days, Food in a Minute for example. While Food in a Minute is a shill hocking off what are essentially prepackaged meals, there are others out there making their living off meals under 30 minutes, or X number of ingredients or less, it just feels like they’re making the act of cooking a chore and something that you need to get done as fast as possible. It shouldn’t be that way, it should be a pleasure, something you don’t mind taking that extra bit of time to do well. But I don’t have kids, I cook for two usually, so maybe I don’t understand the pressures of cooking for the whole family. Maybe I’m just a nut, I like getting home and spending time in the kitchen cooking dinner, then after eating, and cleaning down, I may do a bit of prep work for the next nights meal.

My preferred method when it comes cooking a leg of lamb, roast it low and slow. Save the med-rare cooking for the cuts that show it off best, rack, backstraps, rump. Leg (and shoulder) should be unctuous, falling off the bone, rich with it’s meaty lamb flavour, nothing beats it.


Spice rub
1 Tablespoon Cumin seeds
1 Tablespoon Coriander seed
1 Tablespoon Dried Thyme
1 Tablespoon Fresh Thyme
1 Tablespoon Salt (kosher)
1 Teaspoon Sweet Paprika
2 Garlic cloves
Olive oil

Grind all the ingredients (apart from the olive oil) in a mortar and pestle. When everything has been thoroughly crushed and ground together, add enough olive oil to form a thick paste.

The Lamb
Preheat the oven to 140ºC. Slice up a few onions and layer on the bottom of a roasting pan. Remove the lamb from the fridge and coat with the spice rub, place it on the bed of sliced onion. Leave the lamb out for about half an hour, which should be plenty of time for the oven to preheat, and take the chill off the meat (never cook meat straight from the fridge).

Half an hour later, put the lamb in the oven (uncovered) for 30 minutes, giving the spice mix a bit of direct heat to release its flavour. Remove the roasting pan from the oven, pour in 250ml of red wine, cover tightly with foil and return it to the oven for four and a half hours, basting a couple of times throughout the cooking.

When the long wait is up take the pan out of the oven and set aside to rest. Turn the oven up to 200ºC. Carefully remove the leg from the pan to a cutting board, and cover. Strain the liquid from the pan into a saucepan. Again, carefully transfer the leg from the board to the pan and roast for 15 minutes in the hot oven, giving it a nice golden crust.

Meanwhile, reduce the cooking liquid, but not too much, just enough to have a good strong sauce. Thicken it with a little arrowroot dissolved in water, do not bring the liquid to a boil again as it will become loose. I like arrowroot as it thickens without adding flavour, and it doesn't make the liquid cloudy, but if you prefer you could go down the traditional flour gravy method.

The meat should have a good golden crust and be falling off the bone tender, but not falling apart. It's perfect for a cold night, served on a parsnip & potato mash made with lots and lots of cream.