Final roast of the season? A herb and garlic paste for roast lamb.

Is there a finer feast than the 'Great British Roast', I wonder? I enjoy so many different styles of food but a traditional Sunday roast delivers comfort like no other. I would be hard pushed to choose a favourite meat to roast. Would it be beef, served pink with billowing yorkshire puddings and creamy horseradish sauce? Or lamb which reminds me of my childhood (it was the family favourite) and of Spring? Perhaps chicken with bread sauce and a sage-scented stuffing - the ultimate comfort food, surely? Pork with crunchy crackling and apple sauce takes some beating too. Game, when in season, is frequently on the menu is our household too.

At this time of year though, I'm always drawn to lamb. I love to roast it with strong, woody herbs like rosemary and thyme and love it too, slightly charred, on the barbecue once the weather allows. Recently, rather than stuffing slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary into slits in the meat, I have been making a delicious herby paste to smear all over the lamb before roasting. I push it deep into slits in the meat to ensure the flavours really penetrate the meat. A little goes a long way and the recipe below was plenty for a sizeable half-leg of lamb. I know many who claim not to like anchovies, but I defy anyone to recognise the flavour here. They simply add a lovely salty, savoury tang which goes brilliantly with the distinctive sweet meat.

Throughout the Winter and early Spring we have a 'roast' most Sundays. Usually in the evening once Master LBG is tucked up in bed, it is our way of enjoying the very last bit of the weekend and banishing the Sunday night blues. Accompanied by a decent bottle of red, it is a tradition that we love and always insist on a 'proper' pudding afterwards. Sometimes, the feast will move to lunchtime so that our son can join in or friends can join us too. A lunchtime feast is always jolly and tends to be followed by a dog walk and an evening film with cheese on toast if we have space.

This weekend we enjoyed what I suspect may be the last 'proper' roast for a while. Mr LBG would probably like us to have a roast with all the trimmings every Sunday throughout the year but I'm afraid I simply can't bring myself to sit down to gravy and roast potatoes once the warmer weather arrives (ever hopeful). Instead we'll enjoy roast chicken with roasted vegetable couscous, butterflied leg of lamb barbecued with an array of salads or rare roast beef with a Thai-inspired salad. Mr LBG may be disappointed but I look forward to the fresher and lighter flavours of late Spring and Summer. Do you sit down to a traditional roast or special meal on Sundays? Do you adapt your Sunday feast according to the seasons or stick with the traditional accompaniments year round?

Herb and garlic paste for roast lamb

Enough for half a leg of lamb (approx 1.5kg)

4-5 decent sprigs of fresh rosemary

Small handful fresh thyme

2 medium cloves garlic

2 anchovy fillets

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

1. Strip the leaves from the rosemary and thyme sprigs. Roughly chop the rosemary.

2. Roughly chop the anchovy fillets and garlic.

3. Using a pestle and mortar, grind everything together until you have a smooth-ish paste.

To prepare lamb:

Using a sharp knife, make deep slits through the fat and into the meat of the lamb. Rub the paste all over the lamb, pushing it down into the slits where possible. Roast as usual.

I am entering this herby paste into this month's Cooking with Herbs blogging challenge hosted by Karen over at the fabulous Lavender and Lovage. This month she has asked that we try to use fresh herbs in our recipes so I hope that she will approve as these herbs came straight from the pot outside my kitchen door - from pot to paste in all of five minutes. I love to grow fresh herbs but am hopeless at remembering to water them. Rosemary and thyme always seem to survive my very erratic watering habits and I therefore use them both a great deal in my cooking!

A treat for tiny tastebuds: Moroccan lamb

Moroccan lamb tagine - a treat for tiny tastebuds

I have never really understood the notion that young children prefer bland food. It is often assumed that when cooking for babies or toddlers, you hold back on the garlic, spices and herbs. I know that I am lucky that my boy is a 'good eater' (so far) but I think that it is important to introduce children to as wide a variety of flavours as possible in their first few years of life. How dull to have the same things over and over again! There are plenty of the usual staples on my toddler's menu (cottage pie, pasta with tomato sauce, fish pie, chicken casserole) but I do try to inject as much variety as possible and make a habit of regularly trying new recipes for him. From mild fruity curries to fish chowders via barbecue pulled pork and basil-heavy pesto: I love watching him discover new flavours for the first time. For the record, so far grapefruit and spinach are the only two flavours that have had a resolute thumbs down.

Where practical, he eats the same things as us but, as we generally eat at different times (not ideal, but hey ho), this is not always do-able. I also like to have good stash of homemade 'ready meals' stashed away in the freezer for him so tend to do a lot of batch cooking.  At the weekend, we indulged in a fantastic lamb curry and there we had some lamb left over. Rather than cook up the usual casserole (Master Greedy is a huge fan of all slow cooked meat and vegetable combinations), I decided to inject a little Moroccan flavour into his diet. I slightly toned down the spices of my favourite lamb tagine and simmered the meat with tomatoes, carrots and dried fruit. The combination of sweet spices and a touch of honey was a winning one which he wolfed down.

I made the classic error of starting the cooking without actually checking to see that I had the relevant ingredients. I do this fairly often - you'd think that I would have learnt by now. Normally I use tinned tomatoes for a tagine and these would be fine if you can't be bothered with all the peeling and chopping. I also had to use sultanas rather than dried apricots as I didn't appear to have any. Master Greedy didn't mind but I think I would prefer apricots myself. Dates would be an alternative too.

He tried that tagine alongside plain couscous and yes, I did sprinkle a little fresh coriander on top. You may laugh (I almost laughed at myself) but I do think that we all eat with our eyes as much as our tummies. If the flash of green made the dish look more appealing to me, then perhaps it would to him too. Besides, fresh coriander is so delicious. 

This is a great dish for toddlers but also for babies once protein is well established. The sweet flavour will appeal to their palates and you can simply purée to the desired consistency. Honey should be avoided for the first 12 months so just leave this out or perhaps use a little maple syrup instead. You could also add extra sweet vegetables such as sweet potato or butternut squash.

(Incidentally, I find couscous to be a great standby for a hungry toddler when waiting for rice to cook simply isn't going to happen.)

Moroccan Lamb

Makes 4 toddler portions

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely diced

1 carrot, finely diced

1 clove garlic, crushed

250g leg or shoulder of lamb, diced into small pieces

4-5 large tomatoes, peeled, seeds removed and chopped* (mine were small - I used 8) or 200g tinned tomtsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp ginger

small pinch saffron, soaked in 1tbsp warm water

1 tsp runny honey (omit for under-1s)

1 tbsp tomato purée

6 dried apricots, quartered (or use dates or sultanas)

4-5 large tomatoes, peeled, seeds removed and chopped* (mine were small - I used 8) or 200g tinned tomatoes

500 ml low-salt lamb stock or water 

Couscous and fresh coriander to serve

*To peel tomatoes, score a cross on bottom of each tomato with sharp knife, pour over boiling water and leave for 5 minutes. The skins will peel off easily.

1. Pre-heat oven to 170C.

2. Heat oil in a small casserole and brown the lamb. Set to one side.

3. Add a touch more oil if necessary and sweat the onion and carrot together until starting to soften at the edges. Add the crushed garlic and cook gently for a minute.

4. Add the dry spices and stir to coat onion mixture. Next add the saffron along with the soaking liquid, tomato purée, honey and apricots. Return lamb to the pan. Cook for a minute or so, stirring to coat.

5. Finally add the tomatoes and stock. Bring to a gently simmer and transfer to oven. Cook for 1.5-2 hours or until the meat is very tender. Check after an hour and add a little more water if it is drying out.

6. Serve with couscous and a sprinkling of fresh coriander!