As I mentioned in my last post, Goon had a couple of friends staying last weekend. I was supposed to be cooking for them, so we’d bought a huge leg of lamb to roast. After all, everyone loves a roast, right?
Wrong. It seems that someone didn’t like potatoes and someone else didn’t like peas, or vegetables in general. Anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time will know about my tolerance of fussy eaters. I really can’t be bothered trying, especially if potatoes and green veg are off the list. So I gave up trying completely and that’s how we all got stuck with take-away.
That left me and Goon with the problem of what to do with the huge leg after his friends had left. It would feed six at the very least, probably more, so there was no point in us roasting it whole. Goon suggested chopping it into lamb leg steaks, which I thought would have been a great idea if we had a meat cleaver. As it is, we have nothing that could handle the large bone in a lamb leg, but Goon thought he’d improvise anyway.
Goon cut some meat away from the bone He then just hacked chunks off until we had two decent sized steaks, which I marinated in a home made olive, garlic and basil pesto.
The problem was that Goon didn’t know what to do with the rest of the meat, so he just, sort of, hacked at it.
Hmm… well, I have to say it’s actually better than the butchery at a certain place we buy from in Shepherds Bush. At least Goon had managed to keep the bone intact rather than getting shards of it in the meat.
Goon got bored at theis point, wrapped up the meat in cling film (exactly as it is in the picture) and then bunged it in the fridge. It got an interesting (high pitched and whiny) reaction when the blonde flatmate came home and found it. 
The pesto for the lamb steaks was a very simple one. I just used olive oil, chopped black olives, chopped garlic and a big bunch of torn basil and popped them in a blender, then tasted and adjusted the ingredient balance until I was happy, This got smeared all over the scored lamb leg steaks.
The next day we hunted around for things to serve with our pesto crusted steaks. We found Jersey Royal potatoes on special offer, and since everyone raves about how fantastic they are, we snatched them up just to see what all the fuss was about. I also spotted some broad beans, which have apparently just come into season, and picked up some feta so I could make a salad with them.
I was pleased with the lamb. The meat took up the marinade flavour very well. I just wish I had some fresh oregano to add to it! The salad worked particularly well. It so happened that I had some peas in the freeezer and half a courgette in the fridge that I could throw into the mix. I also had some rather tired looking mint but just enough was still usable for me to make an mint-infused olive oil dressing.
I see what people mean about the Jersey Royal potatoes. They have a really good texture and a slightly more earthy flavour than other new potatoes. I still think I prefer Anya potatoes though.
This meal was the first time I’d had broad-beans since I was a kid. It reminded me of going strawberry and broad-bean picking in the school summer holidays. It seems that broad-beans are one of those things I like much more as an adult. Especially with some mint and crumbled feta. 
The rest of our lamb has now been cut into bite sized pieces and is sitting in the freezer. I need to think up ways to use it fast since Goon is moving in a week!
As I mentioned in my last post, Goon had a couple of friends staying last weekend. I was supposed to be cooking for them, so we’d bought a huge leg of lamb to roast. After all, everyone loves a roast, right?
Wrong. It seems that someone didn’t like potatoes and someone else didn’t like peas, or vegetables in general. Anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time will know about my tolerance of fussy eaters. I really can’t be bothered trying, especially if potatoes and green veg are off the list. So I gave up trying completely and that’s how we all got stuck with take-away.
That left me and Goon with the problem of what to do with the huge leg after his friends had left. It would feed six at the very least, probably more, so there was no point in us roasting it whole. Goon suggested chopping it into lamb leg steaks, which I thought would have been a great idea if we had a meat cleaver. As it is, we have nothing that could handle the large bone in a lamb leg, but Goon thought he’d improvise anyway.
Goon cut some meat away from the bone He then just hacked chunks off until we had two decent sized steaks, which I marinated in a home made olive, garlic and basil pesto.
The problem was that Goon didn’t know what to do with the rest of the meat, so he just, sort of, hacked at it.
Hmm… well, I have to say it’s actually better than the butchery at a certain place we buy from in Shepherds Bush. At least Goon had managed to keep the bone intact rather than getting shards of it in the meat.
Goon got bored at theis point, wrapped up the meat in cling film (exactly as it is in the picture) and then bunged it in the fridge. It got an interesting (high pitched and whiny) reaction when the blonde flatmate came home and found it.
The pesto for the lamb steaks was a very simple one. I just used olive oil, chopped black olives, chopped garlic and a big bunch of torn basil and popped them in a blender, then tasted and adjusted the ingredient balance until I was happy, This got smeared all over the scored lamb leg steaks.
The next day we hunted around for things to serve with our pesto crusted steaks. We found Jersey Royal potatoes on special offer, and since everyone raves about how fantastic they are, we snatched them up just to see what all the fuss was about. I also spotted some broad beans, which have apparently just come into season, and picked up some feta so I could make a salad with them.
I was pleased with the lamb. The meat took up the marinade flavour very well. I just wish I had some fresh oregano to add to it! The salad worked particularly well. It so happened that I had some peas in the freeezer and half a courgette in the fridge that I could throw into the mix. I also had some rather tired looking mint but just enough was still usable for me to make an mint-infused olive oil dressing.
I see what people mean about the Jersey Royal potatoes. They have a really good texture and a slightly more earthy flavour than other new potatoes. I still think I prefer Anya potatoes though.
This meal was the first time I’d had broad-beans since I was a kid. It reminded me of going strawberry and broad-bean picking in the school summer holidays. It seems that broad-beans are one of those things I like much more as an adult. Especially with some mint and crumbled feta.
The rest of our lamb has now been cut into bite sized pieces and is sitting in the freezer. I need to think up ways to use it fast since Goon is moving in a week!
Oh the blonde housemate haha! I like the feta and broad bean combination, we did something similar not long ago at college with a salad of feta, minted fresh peas and diced tomato (concassé). I mist say that’s a bloddy big plate of food there, did you share that with Goon or was that just your plate? I’m a monster when it comes to eating but even that scares me!
Comment by Trig — June 17, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
Hey, I thought I did a rather good job of the carvery.
I didn’t hack at it either, I gently sliced chunks of meat from the bone.
I took pride in the carvery, every chunk was precisely cut :-p
Comment by Andy — June 18, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Lamb kebabs! that’s what i’d do with the remaining chunks - skewer them onto sticks of rosemary and grill / bbq.
Comment by Schmoofaloof — June 18, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
Trig, you have been fooled by the powers of perspective! That’s a 214g steak. We measured it to make sure we were cutting the lamb into sensible portions. So it’s big but not HUGE. There were a few too many potatoes though. I think 4 would have been fine but I served myself 6.
Goon, ‘precisely cut’ in what sense? In the “well, this looks lie about 200g, no wait- lets cut it in half, ad trim this bit, and lop this bit off. Now it must be around 200g!” sense?
Schmoof clearly great minds thing alike. I was planning on kebab-ing one half of that pile of meat. I think I cut up the other half too finely to mae it kebab-wotthy.
Comment by ros — June 20, 2007 @ 12:09 am