Jazz Lamb: The Solo Flew...

Right, I was going to write a piece about street photography, inspired by something Joe shared with me this morning, but I have to break off from that trajectory for this evening due to the above pictured meat and potatoes. Jane brought back a couple of 'Lamb Rump Steaks' from M&S this afternoon - the meat meat shelves had been blitzed; we'd wanted to cook a half-shoulder and roast potatoes, but this was all that was left in the lamb department - and to be frank, I was not entirely sure how I wanted to cook them: they are, after all, not really a 'cut' of meat; rather some marketing wonk's idea of how to sell the remains of a carcass after all the 'proper' cuts have been taken from it. There's a lot of - too much - connective tissue and not a great deal of fat to work with; so I decided a Middle-Eastern marinade of pomegranate molasses, chilli flakes, garlic and olive oil etc., would possibly do the trick.

The spuds were a pack of bakers, so I figured I'd do some Greek-inspired roast wedges, with olive oil, garlic, oregano and lemon juice: everything - lamb and potatoes - seasoned off with Halen Môn sea salt. I roasted the spuds in their marinade for about fifty minutes, and the lamb was cooked on a griddle in its marinade for around eight minutes a side, the spiced oil forming a piquant dressing for the meat, which I rested for a good twenty minutes whilst some tender-stem broccoli was boiling up. Despite the connective tissue issue [there's alliterative for you], the meat itself was gorgeous, as were the potatoes. I am definitely going to try this with some of those lovely little lamb chops that are readily available and which have a much better meat/fat/bone ratio going for them: be good on the barbie, too, should the weather cheer up sufficiently. An absolute belter, though: and I'd have been very happy paying twenty or thirty quid in a restaurant for it: well chuffed. Back to the photography thing tomorrow...