Monday, April 17, 2006
Easter Lamb
It's Easter Sunday and we decided to be all boringly traditional and have roast lamb for dinner. I had bought a smallish shoulder of lamb yesterday, which I was planning on roasting with some potatoes (our guest had never had roast spuds) and serving with some of Jenny's vegetables (thoroughly washed to ease our guest's mind) and homemade mint sauce (but I forgot to buy vinegar, so that didn't happen). But as per usual with me, life threw a spanner in the wheels of this well-laid plan.It all started in the morning when our guest decided that he wanted to see the "famous Dublin doors" around Marrion Square. There was no convincing him that a) there were similarly nice examples of these colourfully painted doors much closer to here and that b) going into the city centre was a bad idea on the day Ireland was to celebrate the anniversary of its Easter Rising against British rule with a military parade - the first since 1969. On the contrary, we found ourselves at the receiving end of a speech about all the nasty things Britain had done to Ireland, which he saw as a clear explanation and sufficient excuse for today's potholes in Dame Street and the lack of a proper bus system. As you can tell, by now the bloke was getting seriously on my nerves. His mixture of self-righteousness, esoteric preaching and uneducated comments about everything and anything are really testing the boundaries of my tolerance. Especially when he starts bitching at me that I bitch too much. Why can't he just shut up and perform some Feng Shui ritual in a corner of the next room?
One of his other negative character traits - an incredibly short attention span - came to our rescue this morning, though. I think he wants to go places just so he can say that he's been there. When we got to Marrion Square he only looked at one door before he was ready to go home again. He was not interested in the artists who sell their paintings around the park in the centre and he certainly no longer wanted to hear anything about the history of Irish protest against British rule. Good, because that meant that, despite seeing helicopters fly above, he had forgotten about the parade and we could walk right around it all.
Our next stop was the Chester Beatty Library inside the castle. We started with lunch at the café, which unlike many museum restaurants is not all touristy and serving bad food, but is in fact a very nice Mediterranean/Middle Eastern/South Asian café serving such delights as moussaka, falafel and lamb curry as well as a number of Middle Eastern sweets, Turkish delight and huge dried dates. It was just the right introduction to the exhibit of religious texts and artefacts of mostly Middle Eastern and African origin we were about to see.
Unfortunately, we spent so much time there, we came home too late for me to prepare the lamb the way I had intended to, roasted slowly in a low oven for several hours. Instead, I used a recipe I found on the BBC website, which suggested a roasting time of 30 minutes in a hot oven. This was a mistake. Lofty and my intuition warned me that there was no way the lamb would be done in such a short time, but I didn't listen. I timed everything else by the time I thought the lamb would be ready and ended up with perfect roast spuds and a selection of vegetables stir-fried until just tender, a red wine sauce and a roast that looked like it had never been inside an oven. So I went through my usual cycle of despair, anger and panic before Lofty suggested just eating veg and gravy now followed by the meat later. If the men were happy with that, so was I; I hadn't intended eating any meat to begin with. I did try a bit when it was finally done, but I must say much to my shame that it was a failure. It was very tasty and perfectly seasoned, but because of the awkward way of roasting the meat had gone tough. I should have just listened to Lofty and made it tomorrow. Oh well, you learn from your mistakes. And just in case you dare approach it using my advice, this is how I would have made the lamb had I had the time (and how I did season it even now):
half a shoulder of lamb (approx. 1 to 1½ kg)
2 tbsp oil
4 cloves garlic, halved
1 long sprig of rosemary
½ tbsp soft butter
crushed sea salt
150 ml red wine
1 tbsp flour
200 ml water
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Heat the oil in a roasting tray. Seal the shoulder of lamb until it has become a light brown colour all over. Remove the lamb from the tray and allow to cool slightly.
Make 1½ cm deep incisions in the lamb, into each incision insert half a garlic clove and a few rosemary needles. Rub it with the butter and lightly with salt. Add half the wine to the roasting tray and put a rack over it. Put the lamb on top and tightly wrap tin foil around it. Place in the oven and roast for approximately 2 hours turning over half way through. Increase oven temperature to 220 degrees Celsius and remove the foil from the lamb. Return to the oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove the lamb from the oven and transfer to a tray to rest.
To make the gravy, place the roasting tray over a moderate heat to caramelise the lamb juices, about 2 to 3 minutes. Strain of any excess fat. Add the flour in continue frying for about 2 minutes. Pour in the other half of the wine and the water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 5 minutes until slightly thickened. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the lamb with the gravy, roast potatoes and seasonal vegetables.
Christine at 2:07 pm
