Minted Lamb Cutlets with a Spring Celebration!

Spring is here!

I don't have much evidence of it, as yet, by the weather or even the plants on the ground, but it's worth remembering that those of us who live at some altitude often see the seasons a few weeks later.

Our farm shops are, however, filling up with spring seasonal produce ... and what better to celebrate the start of a new growing year with some lamb and green vegetables?

To the kitchen! Via the farm shop!

Back home ...

Buy a rack of lamb and chop through each rib in turn to make the cutlets. Cutlets have a small pack of meat, but what a fantastic little piece of meat!

Also buy some seasonal green things - peas, green beans, stringless beans, leeks, baby courgette and mint. I also grabbed some lamb's lettuce (which sounded about right to go with lamb) and some Gevrik, which is a Cornish goat cheese. Goat cheese is flavour of the month in March, for some reason.

The final thing a dish like this needs is a jus.

Balsamic vinegar works really well with lamb and to be absolutely frank, I couldn't care less whether it is paleo or not. It's fermented, it's vinegar; that has both positive and negative connotations in the paleosphere ... I don't care. That's not sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting, "lalalalalala" when good paleo advice is being spoken, that's me just saying that some things might be beyond paleo.

The jus - take some good balsamic vinegar. You'll know it's good by how much you paid for it ... I paid almost £15 for 500ml bottle, making it about as expensive as whisky! I eat it so rarely, and when I do, it's drops, but this is a celebration - I used about 60ml of balsamic.

In a pan, reduce ... when sticky, whisk in some good butter. I used proper Yorkshire butter from "cows which live outside and eat grass". You do this bit last, but I got carried away ...

Steam the green beans, stringless beans and peas.

Bring a griddle pan to a good heat and cook the cutlets a mere minute, or two, on each side. Set aside to rest. Place the babe courgettes on the griddle sliced on the angle.

The remainder comes together quickly ...

In a frying pan, warm a little olive oil, adding in some leek shredded across the angle, the pre-steamed green things, tossing in the courgettes once they've had a minute, or so, to char on the griddle.

On a clean white plate, pour out the jus in a circle. Place a mound of green vegetables in the middle, sprinkle some chopped mint over and lay the cutlets against the mound.

Garnish with lamb's lettuce and slices of Gevrik.

Carrot & Coriander Soup

What do you do with a glut of carrots?

You could grate them into salads, juliennes, ribbons, make a rösti, simply boil, cut into sticks ... but if you need to get rid of a lot of carrots which are just starting to turn ... it's soup for the win!

Carrot with coriander is a classic combination, and one which can be lightly spiced for a really delicate flavour.

To work ...

Peel and slice a few carrots - a couple of large ones each, or three smaller ones will do fine portion-wise. I also sliced up some daikon since I had some that needed using up.

Chop an onion and mince a couple of cloves of garlic, toss into the pan and sauté in butter. Add in a good tablespoon of ground coriander and a teaspoon of turmeric to deepen the colour. Add some chilli powder at this point for a little tickle in the end dish.

Pour in a couple of pints of good chicken stock, toss in the carrots, the daikon and then boil until the vegetables are soft, adding in more water if the level drops significantly.

Once the vegetables are soft, hand blend thoroughly.

Adjust the texture by reducing or adding in more water for a good consistency just right between not too thick, not too runny. Too thick and the soup will be erupting and spitting. Too thin and the solids will not hold right in suspension.

Serve out into a wide-brimmed bowl.

I also finely sliced some bacon, spring onions (which are right in season at the moment) and garnished with some micro-garlic cress.

Warm Celeriac & Cabbage Remoulade

Remoulade: a simple condiment of mayonnaise and tangy flavours.

The recipe is wide-open. Simply take some mayonnaise, some herbs and add in whatever flavours you like - capers, cornichons, onion, garlic, mustard, curry powder, whatever will work well with the dish.

We were having pork chops, so lemon juice and mustard formed the key flavours. The remoulade would be folded into celeriac, which is right in season at the moment, and some white cabbage.

Let's put it together ...

Half a white cabbage shredded and half a celeriac, peeled, fine sliced and chopped into matchsticks was more than sufficient for two. Good for leftovers, and a combination that works perfectly well cold.

Boil the vegetables just enough to soften, but not lose too much texture or flavour - both cabbage and celeriac are fine raw and very nice par-boiled.

Using a couple of large tablespoons of mayonnaise, the juice of half a lemon, a good teaspoon of English mustard and a handful of chopped parsley, the ingredients were combined and then folded into celeriac and cabbage.

Serve out onto a plate and accompany with a piece of meat. In our case, a pork chop with creamy mushroom sauce.