Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Chermoula

This months delicious. magazine has already been tagged with lots of hot pink sticky notes. For once, the planets have aligned so, not only are there lots of recipes I want to make, but I have all the ingredients on hand. This one is the butterflied leg of lamb with chermoula.

I had a leg of lamb in the freezer and I'm quite partial to taking to things with the knife and deboning. If you are a little squeemish or don't really have the time, a butterflied legs of lamb can be prepared by your butcher.

After removing the bone, I cut through the larger pieces of meat so it lay flat.

The chermoula mix before being liberally massaged into the lamb.

Stored in a plastic bag in the freezer for two days.

Hot off the BBQ. I served ours with some cubed, fried potatoes and salad, but it would be just as good sliced from the barbeque into flat bread and eaten in your hand.

Pink, succulent roast lamb - yum.

Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Chermoula.

2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 ½ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground turmeric
5 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
½ cup finely chopped coriander, plus extra sprigs for garnish
2 – 2.5kg lamb leg, butterflied
Lime wedges and minted yoghurt to serve.

Mix the spices, garlic, oil, lemon juice, chopped coriander and 2 tspn pepper together in a bowl.
Place lamb, skin side down, on chopping board and open out. Spoon half the chermoula mix onto the meat and rub it in well. Turn over and repeat with the remaining mixture.
Place the lamb in a large snap lock bag, folding the lamb to fit. Place in a container with a tight fitting lid, or in a dish and cover well with plastic wrap.
Marinate lamb in the fridge for 1-2 days to allow the flavor of the chermoula to permeate the meat. Bring back to room temperature for about 30minsutes before you cook it.
Preheat the BBQ or char grill pan on high heat. Sear the lamb for about 4 minutes on each side.
Reduce the heat to medium, cover with the BBQ lid or a stainless steel bowl and cook for a further 13 – 15 mins on each side, until charred on the outside and rosy pink in the thickest parts of the meat.
Transfer lamb to a tray, cover with foil and rest for 15 minutes before carving.
Thickly slice the lamb across the grain, garnish with coriander and mint yoghurt and lime wedges.

from delicious., October 2008, Belinda Jeffery.

Riche - Authentique Chocolat Belge

Those of you who have been visiting me regularly may have realised by now that I'm not a coffee drinker, but do know my way around a good hot chocolate. Having drunk so many and made many more I have become very fussy as to what I will accept and how I like it made. So much so that my husband at times has almost begged me not to order one as we both know I will be disappointed. He wont even offer to make me one at home now, so specific is my 'formula' that only I can make it right.

Which was why a return visit to Riche in Mt Hawthorn was high on my list of priorities during a recent family visit to Western Australia. Knowing how much I liked a good hot chocolate my sister had taken us there on a previous visit a year ago. I was relieved to find Riche where I had left it and apparently doing a roaring trade.

There are nine basic chocolates to choose from. There is also tea, coffee and cold drinks, but I didn't give them a second glance.
Beginning at the top and working down:

Inca Recipe - Ebony Liquor 99.4% cocoa infused with honey

Sao Thome 85% - the chocolate drink of my choice read like this from the menu: A rare dark chocolate that combines a subtle fruitiness with a richly varied assortment of aromas and remarkably fine hint of vanilla bourbon. As you can see from the picture above it is served with a small whisk so that all the chocolate can be melted into the hot milk. It was wonderful.

Bolivia 72% - hints of roasted peanuts

Ecuador 71% - hints of white grape

Peru 64% - wild berry

Costa Rica 64% - almond

Santo Domingo 55% - fruity and spicy

Venezuela 43% - caramel and nutty

You could also have your choice of chocolate mixed with liqueurs such as Sambuca, Vodka, Cointreau and Napoleon Brandy. These, too, had wonderful and exotic names as well as a full description on the table menu and the menu board.

They also serve coffee in beautiful cups, and all chocolates purchased in the store are packaged in their own carry bags.

The store owners are from Belgium and import these truffles as well as make their own.
All the cabinets and the floor are beautiful timber and it is a wonderful place to take a break and fortify oneself for more shopping.

Riche serves morning and afternoon teas, with a small selection of beautiful cakes as well as lunch from a small but typically French lunch menu.

Riche Authentique Chocolat Belge

Shop 3/148

Scarborough Beach Rd (cnr Flinders St)

Mt Hawthorn

(08) 9201 0099

Father's Day

At last I'm back. I've got lots of great photos and products to show you from my recent visit to WA, but first I need to tell you about Father's Day.

As it is my responsibility to pick the location for breakfast on Father's Day I chose the Jackman & McRoss Bakery in Battery Point. Of course this is totally self serving as I wanted to eat there, but my easy to please husband was more than happy. A friend had mentioned this bakery as a place we should visit and I had accidently driven past it on the way home one day, so quickly pulled over and went to investigate.

Buttermilk and Raisin Loaf $7.20

This was the highlight of our visit, so much so that I bought one to take home. The loaf had been sliced, but not all the way through, and then warmed in the oven until it was crunchy on the outside and soft and steaming on the inside.

Chorizo sausage, gruyere cheese and caramelised onion, wrapped in puff pastry with homemade relish $6.50

This was one of those really spicy chorizo sausages and my son couldn't eat it. It was certainly very spicy but we ate it for him. Not many onions in it though.

The egg and bacon and tomato pie with homemade relish ($6.80) was delicious. The pastry was crispy and the filling had plenty of bacon and a not quite set egg.

Other menu choices include croissants ($4.50), different varieties of brioche ($2, $3.50), danish ($4.50) and a hot smoked trout, bok choy, dill, horseradish and capsicum frittata ($7.50)
There is no traditional bacon and eggs as this is a bakery first and cafe second. Apart from the printed menu there was a black board menu with variations of pies and breads. There were the usual coffees, hot chocolates and a choice of 19 different types of teas. It was almost all tables for two inside and I wondered if that meant most of their patrons grabbed a quick bite before heading off to work or the Saturday markets.

Make sure you check out the bakery section and all the cakes before you leave. There are some lovely breads and one of the few places I have seen a fresh brioche loaf.

Jackman & McRoss

57-59 Hampden Rd

Battery Point

6223 3186.

Anzac Biscuits

I had plans to tell you about the lovely breakfast we had for Father’s Day, but that will have to wait as time ticks by too quickly today. We are off to WA to visit family for the school holidays and there is too much to do.

My husband is staying at home, working and cat sitting, and while I haven’t left him any meals specifically, there are heaps of neatly labeled boxes of left over in the freezer. He is under instructions to empty the freezer in my absence so it can be refilled when I get back. Something I now keep in the freezer, and have been handy this week, is uncooked Anzac biscuits.

I was planning on baking some one day and ran out of time. I formed the dough into logs and left it in the fridge. When I had a chance the next day I cut slices and froze them flat on a freezer tray and then stacked them in a box for later baking. This has turned out to be a useful idea. If I’ve had the oven on for dinner and the biscuit tin is looking a bit empty then I can put a try of these in the oven and they are cooked by the time we are finished eating.

I plan on keeping a stock of Anzacs, choc chip, spice, and sultana biscuits in the freezer so they can be baked at short notice.

This has been a family recipe for years, I remember my grandmother making them

Anzac Biscuits
1 cup rolled oats
1cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
¾ cup coconut
125g butter
1 tbspn golden syrup
1 tsp bicarb
2 tbspn hot water

Mix together the flour, sugar, oats, coconut and bicarb.
Melt the butter, water and golden syrup together
Add butter mixture to the oat mixture
Form balls or put teaspoons of mixture on a lined baking tray
Bake at 160C for about 20mins for a crisp biscuit. A little less if you like it chewy.

Stay tuned as I plan on a couple of visits to some gourmet stores and cafes in Perth and will let you know of my adventures.

The Lansdowne Cafe

This morning A and I had great plans to go for a walk and discover a new cafe. Well, not in this wet and windy weather thank you. We decided on The Pigeon Hole, a newly opened cafe on the outer edge of the city. Neither of us had noticed that it wasn't open on a Monday, so a quick change of plans and we were at The Lansdowne Cafe in West Hobart. At ten o'clock on a Monday morning it was almost full, but they were happy to pull two tables together for us and the little people.

As usual my hot chocolate and it was rich and delicious. A cute baby chino and a baby hot chocolate were delivered in shot glasses, dusted with chocolate and accompanied by a marshmallow - two happy little people.

The Lansdowne Cafe serve all day breakfast from 8am until 3pm, and it's going to take a few visits to work my way through this menu.
First on the menu was toast with a choice of seven different types of bread; including sour dough, brioche and rye.
Fruit and nut organic museli with a fruit compote and natural yoghuet ($8.50)
Fruit Compote with natural yoghurt and cinnamon ($6.50)
Waffles with bacon, grilled banana and maple syrup ($9.00)
Egg & Bacon Baguette with Vintage Cheddar and TLC tomato relish ($9.50)

A and I decide to share the fruit compote with yoghurt and cinnamon. This was very tasty and not at all tart, something that usually scares me off ordering fruit for breakfast. Rhubarb, apple and blueberries were identifiable and the yoghurt was smooth and creamy with a generous dusting of cinnamon.

While the egg and bacon baguette was a bit plain looking on arrival, it made up for it was lashings of bacon and a wonderful home made relish with nigella seeds that gave it an interesting taste. Served on a soft baguette this was a great antidote to a cold and blustery morning.

We were pleased with the speed at which the meals were served. We weren't sure if it was because we had little people or they had an efficient kitchen. Either way we were impressed.I've had breakfast here before and on both occassions have enjoyed the food and service. It's on my list for breakfast again, and it will be the waffles next time.

The Lansdowne Cafe

68 Lansdowne St

West Hobart

Apricot Tart from the Pantry

What's hiding in your pantry?

I was talking with some on-line friends the other day about how much food we have in our freezers and pantries. Among us there were those that couldn’t last a week without shopping to a few that have copious quantities of food and grocery items stashed away in various locations around the house.

How much is enough and how much is too much I wondered? Do we stock pile food because it makes us feel safe, does it make us feel wealthy or good about ourselves that we can buy all these items? Are we preparing for that unknown disaster that we feel is imminent? Is it a type of genetic trait that carries through from our parents or do we just shop regularly out of habit, with little or no thought to what we have at home? Have you ever really looked in your pantry, counted the packets of casserole mix or tins of tomatoes? And here is the scary bit, have you ever tried putting a dollar value on the items gathering dust on your shelf? So are you saving money or wasting money?

At the end of this discussion, various challenges were thrown down. One lady decided she would not shop for the entire month of August. So far she is still going strong and planning on staying away from the shops until Christmas.

A friend and I have challenged each other to a $0 grocery spend for the next four weeks, and we are coming to the end of the first week. For me, I haven’t shopped for nearly a fortnight. Our challenge excludes fruit and vegetables as neither of us grows our own and allows one essential item, for my friend it is milk, for me it is eggs.

To begin our challenge I did a stock-take of all the items in the kitchen.
We have recently moved towns and into an older house and what seemed like copious amounts of cupboard space quickly disappeared as the pantry was restocked. In fact I have two pantries; one I use for ingredients that tend to make the evening meal and the other for my baking supplies. This pantry also has room to store all my useful and useless gadgets and the biscuit jars so the boys don’t starve. I have a large fridge with a two drawer freezer below and a free standing freezer.

This stock take took quite a while and when I had finish I was horrified to have taken up nine pages. I deleted all regularly used items and now have a list of 189 items that are to be used up and not replaced. So while I will have to restock with meat, fish and baking supplies, there is not much else I’ll need for quite a while.

I choose to buy my meat in bulk, and fruit and vegetables fortnightly from a local market. I then menu plan in rather a loose way by selecting a piece of meat or fish and then going ‘shopping’ in my own fridge and pantry. Perishable vegetables and fruits are eaten first, so by the time the fortnight is up the evening meal can become quite inventive – so far no one has complained.

So my task now is to use up all 189 items. The first thing I made was an apricot tart; a girl needs her sugar when confronted with a mountain like this to climb. I used a purchased pastry case and sprinkled the base with almond meal, but bread crumbs or biscuit crumbs would do fine. Tinned apricots were then laid over the almond meal and a couple of spoonful of juice from the can was poured over. This ran through to the almond meal and when cook produced a sweet cakey layer. A sprinkle of brown sugar and into the oven for 25 minutes; delicious, and two things off my list.

How much is in your pantry?


These are the fish stock cubes I mentioned in the fish pie recipe a little while ago. Worth getting if you can find them or something similar.

Waxed

A family Sunday breakfast was the order of the day. We tried Waxed in Sandy Bay and had a great time. Although we were unable to uncover the origins of the name, we were met with a smile and friendly service. Nice to see a happy face on a Sunday morning. We have come across some grumpy Sunday staff on occasion.

Waxed is open seven days a week and serve breakfast on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The menu includes a simple Eggs on Toast ($7), through to Eggs Benedict ($12.50), Eggs Florentine ($12.50) and Banana and Ricotta Hot Cakes ($13)

Hot Chocolate - delivered as requested: strong

My husband enjoyed the Big Breakfast. I don't remember the price but he commented he was happy to pay it when the meal was a good as this.

I had the half serve of the Eggs Royal; Mini Eggs Roy ($9), sour dough toast, smoked salmon, beautifully poached egg and Hollandaise sauce. Both the kids enjoyed their meals and chocolate milkshakes. One had poached eggs on toast; two eggs and two pieces of toasted sourdough, he reported this to be the best eggs he had ever had. The little bloke had a small serve of scrambled eggs. This wasn't on the menu but the staff were happy to oblige.

Coca Cola Apple Fritters with Hot Cinnamon Ganache and Vanilla Ice Cream
It's not like me to have such a small breakfast, but the opportunity of a half serve meant I could try the apple fritters. The coca-cola batter and cinnamon ganache, while not the sort of item you expect on a breakfast menu, were too intriguing to pass by. Although the cinnamon wasn't overly obvious these fritters were delicious.
A great breakfast enjoyed by all the family, great food, reasonables prices and friendly service with a smile. We plan to go back and try the dinner menu one night soon.

Waxed
5 Gregory St, Sandy Bay