I can't believe at how quickly this month is passing by. I all of a sudden found myself staring at not having a recipe cooked out of this month's Delicious magazine and I just couldn't let that happen. I kind of lost my cooking mojo lately. I have still been making stuff to eat but certainly nothing worth writing about. In fact not much cooking involved with pre-coated chicken breast schnitzels and frozen veg. I have, of course, had a few exceptions but I just haven't seemed to have gotten around to writing about them yet. I have a bit of catching up to do.
From this issue I had initially wanted to make Nigella's Chocol-Oat Cookies. Basically a double chocolate oat cookie having both cocoa and chocolate chips. They sounded so good but had already made some other biscuits at the time and didn't really need two different types in the house.
When menu planning for this week I decided to make two recipes from this issue this weekend. The first was Chicken with Shanghai Noodles from the Global Flavours feature. I had just scanned the recipe looking at what was required for it. Finding that I had almost all the ingredients I decided to make it for dinner on Saturday night. I, however, came down with a cold. Saturday morning I still planned on making it however by the afternoon I was starting to feel pretty awful again and on further reading of the recipe there was a lot more to it than I originally thought. So I have stuck the chicken thigh fillets in the freezer and I hope to make this on Wednesday when I have the day off and hopefully will be better.
The other recipe on my menu plan from this issue is the one that I ended up making tonight, Valli Little's Moroccan Lamb with Carrot Salad which Valli says is inspired by Joanne Weir. This was very good. Although I did have a couple of issues. The first was the "lamb neck fillets" in the recipe, my very good local butcher didn't know what they were. So on my butcher's suggestion I purchased a 400g lamb leg roast portion. It was very lean and looked like it would be perfect. Second issue was that I couldn't get Dutch carrots, so I just used some regular carrots that I quartered. Finally, there was too much salt in the spice mix. I think reducing it by half would be better. I also reduced the amount of pepper. Oh, and very last, the citrus zest in the oven....200C was way too hot.
Moroccan Lamb with Carrot Salad
Ingredients:
2 tbsp finely grated orange zest
2 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 x 400 g lamb leg portions
1 cup whole-egg mayonnaise (I would use yoghurt next time)
2 tsp harissa (I used more)
Carrot Salad
4 large carrots, quartered
2 tbsp honey (I used Leatherwood)
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp redcurrant jelly
Juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
radishes, sliced
sprouts, salad leaves, feta (I used garlic feta), to serve
Method:
- Pre-heat oven to 160 C.
- Bake zest and a tray for 5 - 10 minutes. Watch very carefully as it will burn quickly.
- Add cumin seeds and bake a further 5 minutes or until zest is crispy. Cool.
- Crush zest, cumin, chilli with 1 tbsp each of salt and black pepper (original recipe was 2 tbsp each).
- Combine half the spice mix with oil and rub over lamb, cover and chill for 2 -3 hours or overnight.
- Pre-heat oven to 180 C.
- Combine carrots, honey and 60 ml oil and roast for 20 minutes or until just soft.
- Combine jelly and juices in a pan over a medium heat. Reduce by half and then add cinnamon.
- In a bowl combine parsley, radishes, sprouts, salad leaves, feta and carrots and dress with a small amount of dressing just before serving.
- Heat an oven-proof fry pan over a high heat. Brown lamb on all sides and them place pan in oven and roast for 15 - 25 minutes (time will depend on how thick your lamb portion is and how well done you like it). Let rest 10 minutes, covered with foil.
- Combine mayonnaise and harissa and place in a serving bowl.
- Slice lamb and serve with carrot salad and mayonnaise.