We would like to say that dinner tonight was due to us staring longingly at the sheep on the Welsh hills, but it’s really just pure coincidence.
Although we did see plenty of fluffy white sheep during our week away (along with a few of what we think were highland cattle and a couple of donkeys. Not sure about the eating on a donkey…).
We’ve been at Green man festival for a week and the food has been amazing. Since I cut my teeth at Reading and V Festival (V Festival was on my school route. Don’t judge) decent, nay good, food at a festival is somewhat novel. A full week at Reading would probably have given me scurvy.
I had a venison salad. Twice.
Salad. At a music festival. Totally different world.
Once we got back there was a quick change around, a quick sleep and then Dan sodded off back to Wales. Intent on undoing all the good work we’d done for their tourist industry via the medium of very loud bangs.
On Friday Mama Lowe came to stay, taking me shopping to replace the coat I’d foolishly left in the car following my disagreement with a tree.
The really nice thing about this recipe was I could get the lamb on the marinade and make the salad in advance, so that when Dan stumbled through the door late Friday evening, the only thing we had to do was griddle the lamb.
This recipe feeds four. I had one portion for Thursday dinner, and then we had the remaining three portions Friday night, with a nice soft red.
We started by marinating four lamb steaks. Two tsp of cumin seeds, one tsp of ground coriander, two tbsp. of chopped fresh mint leaves, and one tbsp. each of honey and olive oil. Mix it up, swish the lamb around in it a bit, then cover and leave in the fridge for an indefinite period of time, whilst your menu plan changes around you.
Ahem.
For the salad we placed 200g of bulgur wheat in a bowl (couscous would also work) and poured 300ml of hot chicken stock over it . This got covered and set aside for 20 minutes while we sorted the rest of the ingredients.
Most of this time was spent trying to chop 50g of dates. Dates act as a collective and do not like to be separated. They are a sticky mess and chopping up 15g of pistachio nuts afterwards felt almost relaxing by comparison. We also add the zest and juice of a lemon and finally 50g of shredded beet tops, taking care to remove any thick or red bits – the red bits make it taste like beetroot, which isn’t really what we were aiming for here.
Baby spinach would also be a suitable green, but we had beet tops available.
It went down an absolute storm. Before we started Mama Lowe made some apologies about not being able to clear her plate due to reduced appetite…but all she left was a little bit of lamb. Which was disposed of into a delighted Bolly.
Food partially eaten as sleepy Dan forgot to take a photo until revived by delicious wine.
thegreedyguineapig 