Gosh, are we on Course No. 4 already? The menu (and this week) has sure passed by fast! Like the fish, the choice of having a lamb dish was my dad’s. And you can’t really say “Sorry dad, but that’s really not healthy of you and if you’re going to drink alcohol, don’t you think having some lamb is going to trigger that gout you’re always worried about?” on his birthday.

So, I cooked up a lamb, but tried to make the side it went with as healthy as possible.

In contrast to the fish course, where the sauce took most of the effort, the meat really was the centerpiece of this dish. I got my chops from a stall at Borough Market for Northfield Farm, which breeds “rare & traditional British breeds” up in Leicester… which means the lamb was totally locavore! OH MY GOD I AM LIKE ALICE WATERS HELL YEAH.

Which also means that I don’t know how much credit I can take for making this lamb taste damn good, because it probably had a lot to do with the quality of the meat. And man, this lamb tasted damn good. But that’s enough chit chat…

The Meat Course: Oven-roasted lamb on Vegetable “Pappardelle” with Mint Jelly

INGREDIENTS

One rack of lamb (enough for one chop per person)
An orange
Brown Sugar
1 Zucchini
1 Eggplant
Half an Onion
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil
Mint Jelly

Take your amazing locavore lamb and put it in a dish deep enough for it to be marinated in. Rub it over with salt, pepper and brown sugar, and then squeeze the juices of an orange onto it. Cover the lamb with the pulpy remains of your squeezed orange’s slices and let it marinate for over an hour.

After an hour, heat up an oven to 250C and put the lamb in (oranges and all). It should cook for about 20 minutes. If you’re a safety nut, you’ll have a meat thermometer and you’ll put it in and it’ll read some temperature that means it’s done, but I just rely on seeing fat sizzle and drip.

Meanwhile, make the super healthy bed of veggies your lamb will be sitting on. Slice the Zucchini and Eggplant into as thin sheets as possible – you want them to kind of replicate the feel of flat, wide noodles.

Slice the onion up and add it to a pan of hot olive oil. Fry until translucent. Then add the eggplant and zucchini and fry until soft. Salt and pepper to taste.

At some point, your oven will start to ding. Slice the lamb into individual chops. Make a mound of the vegetable pappardelle, place the lamb on it and top it with a spoonful of mint jelly. Boom.

Full up yet? BUT WAIT… THERE IS DESSERT!