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Fresh sardines with radish and chicory salad
To Drink: Bodegas Castro Martin A2O Albarino
With the mornings getting lighter and the nights no longer so cold, March brings with it the early signs of Spring. Chicory has been around for a while but now the new crop of radishes is just being pulled and the first of the season’s sardines are being caught. Together they make a healthy and delicious combination with the crisp hot bite of the radishes cutting through the oily fish.
- 2 bunches of radishes washed and sliced (leave a few whole for decoration)
- 3 heads of chicory broken open to separate the leaves
- Olive oil
- Lemon juice
- Sea salt
- 12-18 sardines depending on size
- Lemon wedges and parsley to garnish
Remove the scales and heads of the sardines and cut open from the underside in the manner of kippers. Paint them with a little olive oil and cook for a couple of minutes on a hot griddle pan.
Toss the radishes and chicory in a little olive oil and lemon juice and place a little on each plate. Place the grilled sardines alongside and sprinkle sea salt and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Main course: New season leg of lamb with flageolet beans (Gigot d'agneau)
 To Drink: Sarget de Gruaud Larose 2001
This French classic makes the best of our British lamb and provides a welcome change from the ubiquitous lamb, mint sauce and peas. New season’s lamb gets all the publicity, but meat aficionados will tell you that although young lamb will be tender, the beast hasn’t lived long enough to develop a real depth of flavour. It’s much more important that you should know that the animal has lived a well-tended life grazing on good ground than that it is merely young.
- 1 leg of lamb 2 - 2 1/2 kg
- Some softened butter
- 2 cloves of garlic, cut into fine slivers
- 6-8 shallots, sliced
- 3 carrots, sliced
- A few sprigs of thyme
- Pinch of sea salt
- A few good twists of freshly ground black pepper
- 1 glass dry white wine
- 250 ml brown stock
For the beans
- 3 x 300 g tins of flageolet beans, drained and washed
- 50 g butter
- 3 finely chopped shallots
- 1 carrot, very finely diced
- Pinch of sea salt
- A few good twists of freshly ground black pepper
- A large bouquet garni (a couple of sticks each of carrot and celery, 2 bay leaves, a few sprigs each of thyme and parsley all tied up in the outer leaf of a leek)
- Finely chopped parsley
Ask your butcher to bone out the leg of lamb, leaving the shank intact and to tie it into a neat roll with string. Good butchers will even ‘channel bone’ it for you if you give them plenty of warning. Use a sharp-pointed knife to make little cuts into the meat and push in the slivers of garlic. Season well with salt and pepper and then smear softened butter all over it.
Heat the oven to very hot, 240 degrees (gas mark 9). Melt some more butter in a roasting pan not much bigger than the leg of lamb and cover the base with the chopped shallots and carrots. Sprinkle with thyme and place the lamb on top of the vegetables. Roast for 10 minutes at full heat and then reduce the temperature to 200 degrees (gas mark 6). A leg of 2 kg prepared weight will take 55 minutes for rare, 75 minutes for medium and 2 hours for well done. Remove the meat from the oven and leave to rest for 10 - 15 minutes before carving.
To prepare the beans, put half the butter in a saucepan over the heat and when sizzling, add the chopped shallots with the salt and pepper. Cover and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes until soft but not browned. Add the carrot and bouquet garni and pour in about 400ml hot water. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes before adding the washed and drained beans to just heat through.
Put 2 dessert spoons of beans together with 4 dessert spoons of the cooking liquid into a liquidizer and pulse to a smooth creamy purée. Drain the rest of the beans and discard the bouquet. Stir in the purée, together with the parsley and another knob of butter. Re-heat, check for seasoning and keep warm before serving.
To make the sauce for this dish, simply remove and discard the roasted vegetables and most of the fat from the roasting pan. Place the pan over a direct heat and 'deglaze' by pouring in the wine and stock and stirring to loosen up all the juices from the roasted meat and vegetables. Strain into a small saucepan and simmer for about 15 minutes while the meat is resting.
Serve on well-heated plates by spooning on the beans and partially covering them with slices of carved lamb. Pour the sauce over the meat. Sprinkle with a little finely chopped parsley – and mint, if you really must!
Dessert: Home made banana and lemon ice-cream in brandy snap basket
To Drink: De Bortoli Show Liqueur Muscat NV
- 4 large ripe bananas
- 160ml crème fraîche
- Juice and zest of half a lemon
- 60g caster sugar
Chocolate sauce
Whiz the ingredients together in a liquidizer, turn out into an ice cream machine. OR pour into a Tupperware box, place in freezer, remove and whisk after half an hour. Do this 3 or 4 times more then allow to freeze thoroughly. Take out of the freezer and place in fridge for 30 minutes before serving.
Brandy Snap baskets
- 110g butter
- 110g caster sugar
- 4 tablespoons golden syrup
- 110g flour
- Juice ½ lemon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
Preheat oven to 180°. Line baking sheets with silicone paper. Gently melt the butter with the caster sugar and golden syrup. Remove from heat and stir in sifted flour and ginger and the lemon juice.
Pour spoonfuls onto the baking sheets (spread well apart and bake for 5-6 minutes until lacy and golden. Remove from the oven and drape over upturned jars while still warm and pliable. Cool on a wire rack. Do one tray at a time or they will harden before you have time to shape them.
Place one basket on a plate and fill with a scoop of ice cream. Decorate with a crystallised basil leaf. Pipe a little chocolate sauce on the plate.
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