Yoghurt and mint marinade for a lamb chop

I was intending to make mint chutney Indian style to go with grilled lamb chops yesterday, but the recipes more or less all called for coriander as well, which I don’t have at the moment.

Ingredients

• plain full fat yoghurt
• a lot of fresh mint leaves
• a chilli chopped
• garlic peeled and chopped
• half an onion or a shallot peeled and chopped

Method

Combine and puree with a stick blender or whatever your method is.

Marinate the lamb if you are organised or if, like me, you aren’t, just put some marinade in the pan, heat, add the chops with more marinade on top. At this point I also added a little oil. I put the chops on just after potatoes for mash had come to the boil (chopped fairly small as is my sous chef’s wont) and that was about right timing wise.

I expect any number of variations on this are worth trying, not lease adding ground roasted cumin at the start, or garam masala at the very end.

I imagine these would be nice cold as picnic food.

A spicy something for fish

Something for fish

I’m a big fan of the idea that fish should always be cooked simply and barely…and true, it doesn’t go with vegetables except potatoes. Rick Stein you are so right.

But there are pastes/marinades you can put on fish that do really add to the experience.

1 tblesp cumin seeds roasted and ground
1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
3 tbsp freshly and finely chopped parsley
half a teaspoon salt
1 tbsp olive oil
2 fish cutlets – what type will really depend on where you are.

Mix the paste ingredients and rub thoroughly over the fish, leave for a while and then BBQ. Most definitely prefer a wood contraption.

Update: we had this with coriander instead of parsley and simply panfried today, as compromises go it wasn’t the worst.

recipe from Stephanie Alexander The Cook’s Companion

Char sui – you can do it!

I know, don’t tell me. You can buy this just anywhere, why go to the bother? Because it is easy and fun and better. Then you can do great things with it. Eat it as is, hot or cold. Put it in soup. Or go on, make Char Kway Teow. Unless you live in Melbourne or Singapore, I don’t see you getting a better one by relying on others.

Update: despite what it says in the following ingredients about lean boneless pork, I am told that actually that is not what you want, you want some fat, which makes sense. Lean pork is generally best avoided….That’ll serve as a reminder that Charmaine Solomon, whose recipe I use, is best on her home ground.

Char sui

Ingredients

750 g lean, boneless pork
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon salt – I do not add salt, the soy is sufficient salt content.
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon Chinese wine or dry sherry
1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
1 tablespoon hoi sin sauce

Method

Cut the pork lengthways into 3 or 4 strips. Crush garlic, mix with salt and mix these with everything else in a large bowl. Make sure pork is well covered with the marinade and let sit for 15 minutes or more.

Preheat oven to 200C. Half-fill a roasting pan with hot water and rest a wire rack across the top. Place the strips of pork on the rack. Turn and baste every 15 minutes or so until nicely glazed and cooked. Slice to serve or use in cooking.

Marinating Paste for Lamb

Marinating Paste for Lamb

I use this for rack of lamb, though it is sufficient for a leg.

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon plain flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
freshly ground black pepper

Mix all ingredients together and then cover meat before roasting. The soy sauce, in particular, will ensure this goes a nice dark brown.

From Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion.

Killer BBQ marinade

BBQ marinade

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup dark Chinese soy sauce
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce, ie the thing one would put on a pie.
• 1/4 cup Mirin. Sherry would do.
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1 (1-inch) cube peeled fresh ginger, smashed

Stir together in bowl until sugar is dissolved.

Marinate, marinate, marinate. And in the fullness of time, your guests will genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.

Baharat spice mix

I realised the other day that I hadn’t made baharat for the longest time – never in Geneva and I’ve been here eight years. In Melbourne long ago I often used to put it on pork chops which were then put on a wood BBQ. The BBQ is not an option now, but pork abounds. Mix the baharat with olive oil and vinegar to make a paste. Rub all over the meat before baking in the oven until done. I cooked it fairly high, about 210C.

We had it hot on day one, but this is much better left and eaten cold, which is how we had it last night on a platter with stuffed eggs, falafels, cheese and so on. It is a good alternative to chicken in these summer rolls.

Like all these spice mixes, it is not written in stone. Like all good Australians, I’ve always used Tess Mallos’ version:

In a spice grinder:

70g black peppercorns
25g coriander seeds
10g cassia bark
20g cloves
35g cumin seeds
2 teaspoons cardamom seeds
4 whole nutmegs, smashed with a mallet
50g paprika

I make half this at a time, though if you use it a lot it is definitely worth doing the full quantity.

Another glaze for rack of lamb

This was just messing about, but it turned out to be divine.

Mix redcurrant jelly and mirin in a small saucepan and simmer for a while.

Brush on lamb and baste during cooking.

Serve with the glaze from the cooking process drizzled over.

The lamb: it really does just depend. I find that anywhere between half and a whole rack is for two people. How greedy are you? How many vegetables are you having?

At any rate, you preheat the oven to at least 220C and don’t cook for too long. Ten minutes might be enough for a half rack divided into two serves. It really should be rare. If you want to overcook it, I suggest there is no point cooking such a delicate and expensive cut of meat.

Something for a rack of lamb

They look so naked, racks of lamb. You need something on them before popping them in the oven. I seem to have mislaid my little book with my own notes on such matters, so this was off the cuff.

While oven is heating to 210C:

A couple of tblsps of a coriander and chilli jelly/jam I had in the cupboard
Several heaped teaspoons English mustard
A tblesp or so of tamari soy sauce
A tblesp of flour
A tblesp of olive oil
Some finely chopped rosemary

Thoroughly mix and then apply to the surfaces of the lamb. I cut an 8 point rack into two first, it needs a bit less time to cook and another surface for the paste.

In my oven it needs about 15 minutes in the oven for meat that is still a little rare in the middle. We didn’t let it stand afterwards. Too greedy.

A nice combination, but nothing like cast in stone, it really is ‘what’s about?’. As we will continue to demonstrate another time.