LAMB KEBAB GAUCHO

Carneiro Lamb

Gaucho Cowgirl inspiration for this dinner and boy oh boy they know how to cook meat.  This would traditionally be the sirloin cut Picanha asado but I have our home reared organic lamb fillet loins know as the noisette cut, the meat is similar to the cut of rib eye with a lovely layer of fat that will baste and flavour the lamb steak.  Simply seasoned and pan seared, then rested well, ensuring these kebabs are lip smacking face stuffing juicy and awesome!

Prep time 10 minutes / Cooking Resting Time 15 minutes

(Dough proving time 15 minutes +)

Ingredients

(serves 4)

The Brasilian Skewer

800g Lamb Noisette or 1kg Rib eye steak on then off the bone

1 tbsp sea salt

1 tbsp coconut oil room temp

Kebab Fixings

2 carrots julienned 

1/2 red cabbage finely sliced

1 bunch coriander leaves rough chopped

8 tbps natural yogurt

1 lime juiced and zested

The Flat Breads

(makes 8)

500g 00 flour

50ml olive oil

15g dried yeast

10g sea salt

320g water

Make the flat bread dough first, place all the ingredients in a large bowl and combine, if using a mixer with a dough hook knead for 5 minutes and the same by hand, then fold the dough over itself a couple of times incorporating air and layers as you do.  Cover with a tea towel and leave to rest for at least 15 minutes and up to 4 hours in a draft free place.  This dough can also be kept in the fridge in an air tight container for up to 5 days, just bring out 30 minutes before needed to come up to room temperature before rolling out.

Cut your lamb noisette loin or rib eye in to three equal steaks and place on your skewer on the diagonal through the fat trying to keep the C shape curve of the fat on the meat.

Rub the meat with the coconut oil and season generously with the salt.  Heat your plancher to a high heat and sear the skewered meat for around a minute each side to seal and give you a lovely layer of flavour, then turn the heat down and finish cooking to your choice, another minute on each side for rare, couple of minutes each side for medium and as long as you think for well done.  Once cooked it really is important to leave your meat off the heat to rest for at least 5-10 minutes.  Take this time to make the flat breads

To make and cook the flat breads flour your work surface, cut your dough in to 8 and roll in to balls, heat a skillet to a high heat and start to roll out your dough balls in to thin flat breads, cook each flatbread as you roll out the next dough ball. 

Cook the flat breads for around one minute on each side and wrap in a tea towel to keep warm while you  finish cooking the rest.

I like to serve this family style, take everything to the table and let everyone build their own gorgeous lamb flat bread kebabs.

LAMB BEAUJOLAIS HAND PIES

Gorgeous little flaky buttery short crust parcels of joy...

Stuffed full of slow braised leg of lamb in beaujoulis villages red wine with red currents, rosemary and a stock vegetable reduction giving your tastebuds that WoW Nom Nom I want another mouthful with each bite.  These are one of my party/picnic nibbles that I am infamous for and I know my friends always look forward to these and a gift bag of extras to go home with too, one of the reasons that I love cooking.

Pastry Prep Time 5 minutes / Pastry Chilling Time 30 minutes / Pasty Cooking Time 25-30 minutes

Slow Braised Lamb Cooking Time 3 hours

Ingredients

(makes 15)

The Best Ever Flakey Short Crust Pastry

900g plain flour

220g butter grated

200g lard diced 

10g Himalayan sea salt 

(home rendered down lard with crackling is the most flavoursome, recipe below)

360ml ice cold water

1 beaten egg for wash

Home Made Lard If You Want To Make Your Own

1 kg pork back fat

1 side pig skin

Heat your oven to 220 C / 385 F, place the fat and skin in the pan, cook for 1 hour, remove from the oven and drain off all the crispy crackling infused lard that has rendered down, that's it you just made lard!  I drain my lard into a 1lb loaf tin, pop in fridge to set then cut into a couple of bars, wrap in parchment paper and store in the fridge, you can also store your lard in a glass ball mason jar.

To Make The Pastry

Place all the ingredients except the water in a large mixing bowl and roughly combine, add the water and bring the mixture to a ball, wrap in parchment paper and pop in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

For The Slow Braised Lamb

1 leg or shoulder of high welfare lamb

1 bottle beaujoulis villages/burgundy red wine

500ml  water

1 tbsp red current jelly

1 onion quartered

2 carrots peeled

1 bulb garlic halved

1 stick celery halved

1 leek halved

2 sprigs rosemary

1 pinch Himalayan sea salt 

1 pinch black pepper

To Slow Cook The Lamb 

Pre heat your oven to 200 C, place all of the ingredients in the pan, place in the oven and let the lamb brown off for approximately 30 minutes, reduce the oven temperature down to 160 C, cover the roasting tin and leave to slowly cook for around 2.5 hours, the lamb is perfectly cooked when you can pull on the bone and it just easily slides away from the meat.  Leave the lamb to rest for a while, remove the whole vegetables from the tin reserving all the cooking juices in the roasting tin, using two forks or your hands pull the lamb apart and leave to cool and soak up all the cooking juices.  The lamb is now ready to be used.

To Make The Pasty's

Pre heat your oven to 200 C / 385 F, roll out your chilled pastry nice and thin, not to thin, I use a 4" pastry circle cutter, but you can make these any size, but I find the smaller pastys more yummy, brush a little egg wash around the rim of the pastry place a large tbsp of lamb in the centre, pull up the pastry from each side and pinch in the centre on top of the lamb, then repeat bring the sides up together down the left side, then right.  Place on a baking tray, I like to bake these on a pizza stone for a extra crispy bottom, egg wash and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden.

TWICE BAKED SWEET POTATO AND BEETROOT EGG CUPS

This is so gorgeous I could have eaten two oh hold on I did!  The rich creamy sweet potato is loaded with spring onion, grated raw beetroot and spinach seasoned with sea salt and black pepper along with a hint of turmeric and fresh chillies, finished off with a creamy egg baked in the centre of all that wonderful loaded baked sweet potato.

Prep Time 5 minutes / Cooking Time 1 hr

Ingredients

(make 2-3)

1 sweet potato

1 spring onion diced

1 small beetroot grated

8 large spinach leaves torn

1 red chilli diced

1/2 tsp fresh grated turmeric

Sea salt

Black pepper

3 organic eggs

Pre heat your oven to 180 C  / 360 F and place your sweet potato in the oven, a medium size potato will take around 40 minutes to bake to perfection.  Meanwhile prep the rest of the ingredients, once your potato is cooked and fork tender, cut a line in the top of the potato and scoop out all the sweet potato keeping the skin intact, place the potato in a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients except the egg, mix well and stuff back in to the sweet potato skin, at this point I would place the potato on a baking tray and then make a well in the centre and crack the egg in to the potato, because the potato is already on the baking tray it is easy now to pop it back in the oven for around 15-18 minutes, if you like a soft runny yolk 15 minutes, then tuck in and enjoy.

WOOD FIRED TANDOORI CHICKEN AND COCONUT RICE

Tandoori spiced succulent juicy wood fired chicken is a gorgeous dinner, simple and quick to make with minimal effort for such a rewarding dinner, served with rice cooked in coconut milk which gives the rice a sweet sumptuous depth of flavour, this is a winner dinner even more so as the rice virtually cooks itself while the tandoori skewers only need turning once.

Prep time 10 minutes / Cooking time 15 minutes

 

TANDOORI MARINADE PASTE

(cooking time 5-7 minutes)

 

4-6 chicken breasts large dice

100ml coconut oil

1 onion fined chopped

4 tomatoes chopped

1 tbsp palm sugar

1/2 tin coconut cream

1" fresh ginger grated

1 clove garlic grated

1 tsp sweet paprika 

1 tsp fresh turmeric grated 1/2 if powdered

 1/4 tsp cayenne chilli powder

6 cardamon pod seeds 

1 tsp fenugreek

3 kaffir lime leaves

1/4 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 pinch salt

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

 

Heat the oil in a pan and gently cook the onions for 10 minutes keeping them translucent, add the palm sugar and cook for a further 5 minutes, now add the chopped tomatoes, ginger, garlic, lime leaves and coconut cream, bring to a very slow simmer.

   

In a coffee grinder, grind all the whole spices coriander seeds, fenugreek and cardamom seeds add to the pan along with the dry spices paprika, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper, cook for 5 minutes until you have a loose paste.  Coat the chicken with the paste and leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes in the fridge, over night even better.  When ready to cook skewer the chicken.

This is the time to start cooking the rice, this will only take 15 minutes.  The chicken will take around 5-7 minutes and a few minutes resting time.  

If your not cooking on a grill over a wood fire pit you can use a griddle on the stove or place a pizza stone in a pre-heated oven 230 degrees.  Once you place the skewers on the grill do not turn the for a couple of minutes, you want the chicken to seal and char adding all that extra character and flavour, the skewers will lift off easily when ready to turn.  Once turned cook for further two minutes then move to a cool part of the grill to rest before serving.

 COCONUT RICE INGREDIENTS

(cooking time 15 minutes)

 

1 can as measurement of rice

1 can of coconut milk

1 1/2 cans chicken stock 

1/2 tsp ground all spice

1 red pepper diced

10 baby plum tomatoes halved

1/2 cinnamon stick

1" ginger

1 scotch bonnet chilli whole

coriander to garnish

1 tsp red dried chillies

 

Rinse the rice and place in a lidded saucepan add the rest of the ingredient and give a gently stir to combine, do not over stir as this will make the rice stodgy.  Pop the lid on and bring to a simmer, turn down to a low simmer and DO NOT TAKE THE LID OFF, leave to cook for 8 minutes, then take of the heat and again do not touch the lid, leave to finish cooking in its own steam for a further five minutes, that’s it perfect cooked rice ready to serve.  If you this is easy to tell as you will have steam holes all over the rice, serve with the charred chicken tikka and flat breads with a mint and cucumber yogurt dip.

BUFFALO STEAK

• Rich buttery and gorgeously sumptuous this is a dish that will have you murmuring words of pleasure, simple to make a one pot wonder or instant pot slow cook, this is a fabulous dinner to come home to all done and ready to go.  It has a hot warming kinda chilli heat that builds up the more you eat but the rich buttery tomato sauce works really well with the scotch bonnet sauce.  A firm favourite in my family home.

Prep time 15 minutes / Cooking time 3 hrs (hands off)

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

800g chuck steak chunky diced 

1tbsp coconut oil

1 lrg onion finely diced

6 cloves garlic finely diced

1 red pepper chopped

1 celery chopped

1 leek chopped

1 carrot chopped

1 scotch bonnet chilli diced or milder chilli

4 tins tomatoes 

3 tbsp tomato purée 

1 tbsp sugar

250g butter

1 BOTTLE West Indian hot pepper sauce (250ml)

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 bunch fresh coriander chopped

2 fresh jalapeños sliced (optional)

1 lemon juiced (optional)

 

 First place your pan on the cooker, add the coconut oil, the onions, garlic, peppers, celery, leek and carrots and gently soften for around ten minutes keeping the onions translucent, next add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar and chillies, scotch bonnets if you want that extra level of gum tingling Ka-Pow! 

Bring the tomato sauce to a gentle just bubbling simmer and cook for ten minutes, meanwhile take your choice of steak and rough chop into 1" pieces, season with salt and black pepper, at the moment my choice is skirt because it has such depth of flavour and suits well to either flash frying rare or slow braising where all the flavour can melt into your sauce.  Melt some coconut oil in a frying pan and brown off the skirt all over then reserve to one side.

With a soup stick blender blend the tomato sauce until smooth, if you don't have a stick blender use a food processor, and pulse in small batches with a tea towel held over the top of the blender as hot liquids can spirt out when pulsed under pressure!

Bring the blended tomato sauce back up to a gentle almost simmer and add the beef scraping the pan all of the resting juices, add half or like me the whole bottle of West Indian (it’s not as hot as you think!) and gently cook for approx three hours, stirring occasionally.  When your tomato sauce is thick and the beef wants to fall apart when touched add the pack of butter and stir in gently once melted, taste and adjust with adding more Louisiana hot pepper sauce, salt and pepper and maybe a squidge of lemon juice.  Finish with fresh coriander and jalapeños.

If you want more of a burn chilli heat rather than the warm hot pepper buzz this dish gives add fine diced Scotch bonnet to your finished dish when served for that gum tingling Ka-Pow! 

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