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Tuesday 5 July 2016

If you can, get hold of two large breasts....

If you can, get hold of two large breasts of lamb from your local butcher – the fresher the better. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to perfectly time my visit to the butcher in Ruddington as his bulk meat delivery was just arriving. Shane Ginty the butcher set to and cut my two breasts of lamb from a carcass that had been in his shop mere seconds. They cost about £6 for the two.

My diddy kitchen on a tidy day.

See Shaun the butcher's Facebook page HERE.






Back at home I de-boned the pair, gave them a quick rinse under the cold tap and patted them dry with a tee towel. A couple of butcher's knots later and I had a fairly large lamb joint for £6. I have a huge rosemary bush in my garden and some sprigs of mint growing so I clipped some rosemary from the bush and snipped off a few leaves of mint for the new potatoes.




Harris and Soufie – my neighbour's cats - took a great deal of interest in the boning of the breasts. Harris jumped up on the side to see if he could offer any help. Alas he couldn't hold the knife in his paws. Shame. He did look keen and even smelled the meat professionally to see if it was fresh. I could tell from the look in his eyes that it was to his liking. Always good to get a second opinion from an expert.

Mr Harris - expert meat sniffer.




The joint was anointed with some olive oil and went into a medium heat oven for approx 180 minutes. After an hour I based the joint with the juices in the cooking dish and removed the now limp rosemary. Towards the end of the cooking I took the lamb joint out and poured three tea spoons of runny honey over the cooking meat. When it had cooked for a further half hour I took the meat out to rest. The smell was delicious.



In the meantime I had cooked some new potatoes, green beans and steamed a small amount of asparagus. I made a gravy from three lamb stock cubes and a little of the cooking juices from the lamb. Instead of mint sauce I went for some wild cranberry sauce from Sainsbury's.





Rosemary bush in the garden.

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