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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Rosemary bush in the garden. |
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