Spicy Lamb Leg with Pumpkin & Couscous Salad

Lamb leg has everything I want in a piece of meat. It's tender, juicy, easy to cook, inexpensive and has an appropriate amount of fat. When you roast it, every part of it is delightful to eat. It's not fidgety like other cuts where you have to cook it in several pots and pans and you end up spending more time cleaning than eating. The fat renders off beautifully in the oven and it all melts in your mouth.

I love a roast with an intense spice rub. There's a lot of meat on that bone so you need a lot of flavour. This rub is so delicious and a great example of using spices for their flavour rather than heat. When it mixes in with the lamb juices, it's a marriage made in heaven.

A couscous salad is the perfect way to soak up those beautiful juices, not to mention it's dead simple to make. I also put in some roast pumpkin (tossed in those lovely spices) for colour and sweetness.

Spicy lamb leg

You'll need:

Lamb leg (mine was 1.5kg)
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon grated ginger
Birdseye chilis (to taste)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon salt

Combine turmeric, paprika, cumin, garlic, ginger, chili, olive oil and lemon juice in a mixing bowl.

Wash and pat dry lamb leg with paper towels.

Rub the spice mixture onto the lamb.

Marinade in fridge for at least an hour. The lemon juice tenderises the meat so the longer the better.

Preheat oven to 170°C.

Roast lamb on a wire rack for 1 hour 20 minutes for every 1.5kg. (I know my oven is pretty slow so I left it in for an extra 10 minutes.)

Rest for at least half an hour.

It should be beautifully pink medium-rare, so juicy and tender it will hardly hold onto your fork.

Pumpkin & couscous salad

You'll need:

500g pumpkin, diced
1 cup couscous
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt
Juice of one lemon
½ cup red onion, finely diced
½ cup raisins
Handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped

Toss the pumpkin in any left over marinade and roast with lamb for 1 hour on a baking tray in a single layer.

Combine couscous, olive oil, salt and water in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap for 10 minutes.

Separate couscous with a fork and mix in pumpkin, lemon juice, onion, raisins and mint.

Enjoy!

Osso Bucco Ragu

There’s much to love about osso bucco. For starters, it’s really fun to say. Secondly, it’s a cut of meat that’s high in collagen, which, when broken down by slow-cooking, becomes rich and gelatinous between the meat fibres so that the meat melts in your mouth. You can buy two pieces of osso bucco from a good quality butcher for less than $10 and this recipe makes 6 servings (that leaves you more money to spend at, say, Country Road). What you end up with is a rich tomato sauce that’s been infused with delicate and meaty veal and bone marrow.

For this recipe, I used a pre-made pasta sauce by Latina, which cuts down the prep time to about 10 minutes. The sauce isn’t the greatest on its own, but when it’s cooked down with meat and veges, it’s brilliant.

You’ll need:
2 portions of osso bucco
3 tablespoons canola oil (or any oil with a high burning point)
2 Spanish onions
6 carrots
¼ green cabbage
5 cloves garlic
500ml beef stock
1L pre-made pasta sauce
Thyme leaves from 2 sprigs
Basil to garnish
Pasta

Roughly chop onions, carrots, cabbage and garlic.

Wash meat and pat dry with paper towels. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat a large pot on high heat. Add oil.

When hot, brown the meat (approx. 1 minute each side). Remove from heat and set aside.

Cook the veges in the same pot for about 10 minutes to release all the lovely juices.

Deglaze the pot with beef stock.

Add pasta sauce and thyme and bring to the boil.

Place the meat back in and turn the heat down to low. (I have a fidgety electric stove so I used a thermometer to keep track of the temperature. According to Heston, shin cuts are best cooked at at least 70°C in liquid, so I kept it at 75°C).

Leave for 4 hours.

Cook pasta according to packet instructions. Drain but keep some pasta water.

Remove meat and shred with a fork while hot.

Scoop out veges from the sauce. To thicken the sauce, stir in pasta water or flour.

Add the shredded meat back and basil leaves to the sauce.

Serve with hot pasta.

Enjoy!

Turducken!

As a meat-lover, my philosophy is this: Why have one meat on Christmas when you can have five? Turducken was the perfect answer: chicken and pork stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey, covered with prosciutto. But don't too many cooks spoil the broth? you ask. Nope. Isn't stuffing animals inside each other a bit gratuitous? Sure. Won't you be constipated just eating meat for the day? Worth it.

It didn't stay this pretty for long!

Making turducken in Sydney really is a path less traveled. I was hard-pressed to find reliable recipes online, let alone a butcher that sold pre-made turduckens. So I paved my own way. Many stressful hours went into the preparation of this beast but in the end, if nothing else, I can proudly say "challenge accepted". Instead of doing the whole birds, I used breast meat. Instead of roasting, I braised at a lower temperature. The end result was delicious. The duck fat had cooked into the turkey, it was sweet and sage-infused and the stuffing was phenomenal. However, because I couldn't find any recipes for braising turducken, I had to guess when it was cooked through and I overcooked it slightly. But now that I know, I can share with you all and hopefully next year it won't be so much of a mystery.

You'll need:
1 turkey breast, skinned
2 duck breasts, skinned but fat in tact
1 cup chicken mince
1 cup pork sausage meat
½ cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped
½ cup breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons sage leaves, roughly chopped
1 red onion, finely diced
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
150g prosciutto
750ml apple cider (I used Strongbow's sweet apple cider)
1L chicken stock
Kitchen string

Preheat oven to 140̊C.

Line a roasting pan with baking paper, just to stop the meat from sticking.

Sweat onion over medium heat in some olive oil until just browned. Remove from heat and cool.

Combine chicken mince, pork sausage meat, cranberries, breadcrumbs, sage and cooled onion with your hands. Season with salt and pepper. (Never make stuffing ahead of time for safety reasons. Always cook moist stuffing immediately.)

Using a meat tenderiser, flatten the turkey breast until it's even in thickness.

Lay the duck breasts, fat side down, on the turkey.

Mould a log of stuffing on top.

Roll tightly and layer prosciutto slices on the top.

Carefully secure with kitchen string.

Place in roasting pan. Pour in all of the apple cider and enough chicken stock so that the liquid comes up halfway on the meat. You can put vegetables in the liquid.

Cook for 1½-2 hours, until core temperature is 75̊C. If you don't have a meat thermometer (like me), test by putting a knife through to the centre for 5 seconds and feeling if the knife is warm. As soon as it's ready, take it out of the oven, remove from liquid and rest for 10 minutes.

Make a gravy with the liquid by whisking in around 5 tablespoons of flour, simmering for 5 minutes, and pushing through a sieve.

Serves 8-10 people.

Enjoy!

My top tip is to call your butcher a week in advance and ask if they'll have all the meats. Most places will let you place an order to pick up right before Christmas day. You should only store poultry in the fridge for one to two days, otherwise freeze it.

Hope you guys had a fantastic Christmas, I know I did!

Quick Seafood Salad

A quick seafood salad after a late night at work. Calamari, Atlantic salmon and prawns marinated in olive oil, parsley, garlic and cracked pepper. Pan-fried on medium-high heat for 4 minutes. Served with green coral lettuce, watercress, bean sprouts, red onion (soaked in lime juice, à la Nigella) and pomegranate seeds, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Smoked Salmon Salad

Smoked salmon with avocado, baby spinach, red onion, feta and fresh mint, dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lime juice. Garnished with fried ginger strips. I foodgasmed. Twice.