Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Boulangere Potatoes

Roast Lamb Portions: 8-10

Ingredients:

• 1 Shoulder of Lamb
• 1 Bunch of Fresh Rosemary
• 1 Bunch of Fresh Thyme
• 1 Heads of Garlic
• 3 Lemons
• Maldan Sea Salt
• 6 Large Onions
• 10 Large Potatoes
• 100g Unsalted Butter
• String

I first came up with this recipe through a combination of 2 different dishes that I had been taught. The main from my college days, we made a similar dish but it was lacking the quality and refine cooking techniques that would have made it an amazing meal. The idea of marinating and slow cooking the lamb came from my Head chef Daniel Sherlock

The dish itself combines the method of cooking a lovely piece of piece of meat, generally used for dicing and slow cooking, and turning it into a joint, worthy of carving tableside at any Sunday roast. That extra luxury comes from the cooking of the Boulangere Potatoes. This type of potatoes come from the French. After the bakers had baked their bread for the day, the locals would bring their potatoes round to use their slowly cooling ovens which were perfect for this slowly cooked potato dish. My method of cooking the shoulder of Lamb on top of the potatoes is nothing new but with the extra twists make this a must try!

The Lamb

First start off by boning out the shoulder, the basis of this method is called butter flying. The Australians use this method a lot for their larger cuts of meat to speed up the cooking on their barbeques (another must!) but we will not be taking out all the bone. Take out the shoulder blade and the connecting bone, leaving the reaming foreleg of the lamb. Open the shoulder out and open out and thicker pieces of meat.  Don’t throw away the bones taken out, they can be used to make a beautiful stock and used for the potatoes, (quickly colour off the bones in a high heat oven and simply add to a pot of boiling water along with some aromatics and vegetables and cook slowly)

For the marinade, chop only the leafs of your Fresh Rosemary and Thyme down until very small, grate the zest off the lemons and then grate the head of garlic. How much you wish to use on your lamb is up to you but a good healthy coating is what I would recommend, and rub all of this mixture into your butter flied Lamb shoulder along with a really good helping of sea salt and a twist of pepper. Roll this back up to ‘re-form ‘your shoulder and tie up with several pieces of string to hold everything together. Your lamb is now ready for the oven. Place on a tray and cover with foil and roast for about 2 hours (depending on the size) until it starts to soften at about 160 degrees Celsius.

The Potatoes

The potatoes, as simple as they are to make, have some very important points to follow. The first is the onions. Slice around 5 Large onions thinly, and length ways. This may seem like a lot, but once cooked will be hardly anything. Take the sliced onions and cook in butter, some garlic and thyme slowly. Leave this to sweat, there will be a point where you look at the onions and think that they are soft, but believe me, keep them on for at least another 30 minutes. They should take nearly an hour to cook and become what you could call chutney or a jam.

Peel and slice the potatoes thinly and start to place in a greased baking tray, layering up the potatoes and cooked onions one after the other, seasoning as you go until a few inches thick. At this point you need to add the stock. Making your own stock from either chicken or the lamb bones collected from the shoulder will give you a much greater result rather than using something out of a packet. So if you have the time I would highly recommend it. Just add enough stock to just cover the potatoes. At this point takes your lamb from the oven, and collect all of the juices in the bottom of the tray and add to the potatoes as well, trying to avoid most of the fat.

To Finish......

Place the Lamb on top of the potatoes and place back into the oven at a higher temperature of 190 degrees Celsius so the lamb can colour and the stock can evaporate. The end result should leave you with a beautifully crispy lamb on the outside and soft on the inside, and potatoes that should have absorbed all the moisture from the lamb and stock and be amazingly rich and soft. This truly is a recipe from the old school but one that has been brought very much into the twenty first century and deserves to be among any great roast.

Thai Beef Stir Fry

Thai Beef Stir Fry Portions: 6

Ingredients:

• 800g Beef Fillet tails
• 500g Baby Carrots
• 500g Beansprouts
• 500g Green Peppers
• 300g Shitaki or Enoki Mushrooms
• 1 Bunch of Spring Onions
• Corriander
• Cashew Nuts
• 1 Red Chilli
• 2 Star Anise
• 30ml Soy Sauce
• 3 Limes
• Tiriyaki Marinade

This recipe is my most recent creation, I made it at work for a special and seemed to have gone down well. I got the inspiration from working at my last job which was at a Thai restaurant. They served a similar which was one of my favourite dishes, the only thing was it was unbearably hot and spicy! So I have adapted it to make it even better than what I remember.

This is one of the easiest recipes I will ever put up, so if you are on the lazy side then try this one for sure!

The Beef

I have chosen Beef fillet tails to use as they are lean but not as expensive as a fillet. Its a hard one to toss up between how to cook the beef. I would choose either to cut it into small strips and flash fry it, however personally I would slow cook it in the marinade for at least 5 hours in a bag at about 80 degrees Celsius. Doing it this way means you will collect every bit of meat flavour that comes out along with the marinade and all of this will make the basis of your stir fry juices even more amazing! Once you have cooked the beef, cool it down and shred it into smaller pieces and separate from the juices

The Juice

Once you have separated the juices from the meat, to make the liqueur. Put it in a saucepan and heat up with star anise, lime juice, soy sauce, coriander stalks and half a chilli (but if you want it hotter, throw the whole chilli in) Bring this to the boil and then pass off through a sieve to remove all the big and small bits. Remember to taste it and add more of anything if you feels it needs it.

 

The Vegetables

 

 

The Vegetables are so simple, cut the baby carrots into small pieces lengthways, thinly slice the green peppers and fry in a hot pan or wok with the bean sprouts for a couple of minutes. Add the Enoki mushrooms, and if you cant get Enoki mushrooms then Shitaki Mushrooms will work just as well. Then add the spring onions and beef along with a drop of the liqueur make sure it heats up well.

And just to finish add some crushed cashew nuts and roughly chopped coriander and that is it!

If you really cant be bothered to make this recipe you should be ashamed! So wonderfully tasty as well as being simple the should be no reason not to do it, especially if you enjoy oriental foods!



Lamb Cutlets, minted mash and glazed baby onions

Lamb Cutlet Portions: 4

Ingredients:

• Lamb cutlets (3 each)
• 1kg King Edward Potatoes
• Bunch of mint
• 3 Garlic cloves
• 10g of Parmesan
• 10g of Pine nuts
• 50ml Olive oil
• Half a Lemon
• 200g Baby Onions
• 200g Carrots
• 100ml Double Cream
• 200g Butter
• 20g Sugar

This recipe was one of my first recipes that I served at the restaurant I am at, the Prism. The CEO of the company wanted to see how I was getting on with my progress and asked me to cook her a menu for her, as well as my head chef and the managers of the restaurant.


Lamb is probably one of favourite meats to eat, the flavour is like nothing else and is just as versatile as beef. Using cutlets or chops to some people is a real gift to work with, an expensive cut but cooked right and served well I think it is the most rewarding cut of lamb to use. It can also be cooked in so many different ways. Growing up, I can remember my dad marinading lamb chops in a tandoori mix and just grilling it, crisping up the fat and I can say to this day there is not a lot better to me. But it can be roasting whole, or pan frying as individuals pieces, as well as stewed.


The Lamb


For the purpose of this recipe I have prepared the chops for a restaurant standard, cleaning the bones, trimming and cleaning up the rack, and if you do spend the time to do this you can really impress your guests. However yo can ask your butcher to do it if you wish.


Take the full rack of lamb and cling film up the cleaned bones to prevent the bones from burning when in the oven. The first stage is to brown of the meat in a hot pan. Do not put any oil in the pan, placing the lamb fat side down first will provide enough oil to cook the meat. Render down the fat until golden and do this on all side and the place in the oven to finish cooking. Depending on the size, it should take about 10-15 minutes to cook to a medium rare, which is what I would recommend but if you like it cooked more then leave it in for another 5 minutes or so.

Once you take it out leave it to rest for 10 minutes, the lamb will be horrible to cut, as well as to eat. The fibres need to relax and release from the cooking making it softer and more tender to eat. You should do this for any meat, especially red meat or game.


The Mash


Use King Edward potatoes to make your mash as there is no better! Place them to boil on and once boiling, turn down the heat and cook slowly and more gently. Once cooked, mash up and pass through a drum sieve for the ultimate smoothness to your mash. At the same time warm up some butter and cream on the stove to be added to the mash, AND DONT BE SHY! You may think that adding all this butter and cream to your mash is bad but for the best mash it is essential. I think it was Marco Pierre White that said 'The potatoes is there to stop the Butter from splitting' and who’s to argue with him?

Once your mash is made the mint pesto needs to be added to it. Place in a blender with your mint leaves, a sprinkling of roasted pine nuts, grated parmesan, chopped garlic. As well as a drop of lemon juice and a good helping of olive oil. And blitz it, but not for too long. Blitz it until you have a paste and that is it, the longer you blitz it the more brown the mint will go. Season and add it to your cream smooth mash.


The Vegetables


To be honest I would say serve this dish with whatever vegetables you are comfortable with and that you love. Personally I would glaze some baby onions and some carrots and no more. Glazing is a simple but effective process that I don't think is used enough in house holds, and it works for nearly every vegetable but works best with root and ground growing veg.


Put the vegetables in a pan with some melted butter, sugar and salt. Season the vegetables a little and pour in a drop of water. Just enough to cover the ingredients and no more. This water needs to have evaporated once finished, leaving you with some deliciously sweet and caramelized vegetables. It is important to place what kitchens call a 'cartouche' which is simply a piece of baking paper that is cut in to a circle to cover the vegetables. We use this instead of a lid because where as a lid will allow for know evaporation, a cartouche will steam as well as allow for evaporation which is essential for this process

Finish this dish of with a jus or a home-made gravy and you wont feel let down!