Sunday dinner...

 You may remember that we’re big fans around here of buying good meat, but the cheaper cuts, and then cooking them carefully to get a really tasty result. Today’s dinner was an example of his - a lamb breast bought from the farmers market a couple of months ago - defrosted through the day yesterday ready to be popped in the oven this morning. A lot of people view a lamb breast as being rather a fatty cut - and indeed it is, but cooked nice and slowly much of that fat renders down and runs out, while helping to keep the meat wonderfully juicy and succulent. It’s also a brilliant cut to add masses of flavour to. 

First job when I got up this morning was to get the oven on - set to gas 5 at first I left it to heat while I prepped the lamb, bringing it out of the fridge and unrolling to let it begin to warm up a little, I set it aside and started to get ready the flavourings I wanted. The pared-off rind of a lemon. Some rosemary, and parsley. Some garlic. Those were all chopped finely. Plentiful salt and pepper, and a good slug of rapeseed oil and the lot was mixed together and rubbed over the meat before it was tightly rolled up and again, wrapped equally tightly in foil (which saves the need to tie it with string) and then the whole lot popped into a pan and into the oven. 20 minutes later the heat was turned down to 3.

Next thing to be done was the root vegetable bake that I’d decided to serve alongside the meat. An absolute winner of a recipe this one, and brilliant for using up any stray root veggies that you might have left. Today ours used half a small swede, the final sweet potato and several regular tattles as well. Finely slice all your veg - I use a mandolin as that’s the easiest way of getting really thin even slices - then assemble.

 If you add a bit of bacon, ham, or chopped chorizo you can almost turn this into a meal on its own in fact. Just layer up the slices of your chosen veg - season with salt and pepper every few layers - and you can add some cheese in the middle for a nice gooey surprise too - I used some sliced Raclette today, but a handful of good strong grated cheddar works really well too. Then pour over a mixture of veg stock and double cream with a bit of cornflour beaten in for thickening, cover with foil and shove in the oven - today I just popped it in at the same low temperature the meat was at. 

The bake takes longer to cook right through than you might expect - a good 2 hours at that heat, but you want it to cook slowly so you get the soft melting texture of the veg and cheese combining as you eat it - there’s nothing more disappointing than a half cooked slice of potato! I uncovered it for the last 30 minutes and added a bit of grated cheddar across the top for a crunchy topping. 

This is what the meat looked like when it came out of the oven - although you can make an effort at carving it basically it IS going to fall apart, but it was every bit as tender as it looked. 

And that’s the final plateful - the meal also used up the last of the broccoli from last week’s veg box - Yep, that’s the stalks as well there, exactly the same flavour as the florets and absolutely not being wasted!  There’s enough of the veg bake left to accompany a meal another day - and also enough lamb to do another meal albeit quite well stretched out with other ingredients. The lamb breast was £3 - so economic is pretty much it’s middle name! The whole meal was delicious, and aside from a bit of prep utterly undemanding as once it’s in the oven the long cooking time means you can get on with other things. (Drinking tea and jigsawing here, mostly!)

There you go, another angle. You’re welcome...! 

Robyn