Lamb loin dinner with Animal Brewery Hop kitty

 This is a posh dinner. Trimmed lamb loin (or cannon of lamb) is not a cheap cut of meat. However, treated simply and with a little care it more than pays back the expense of the initial purchase. With this recipe I have added some dinner party favourites alongside the meat. A loin of lamb should serve two or three people depending on the time of year and hence the age of the beast.

• 1 trimmed lamb loin
• Lamb stock
• Fruity red wine
• Redcurrant jelly

Dauphinoise potatoes

• 500gms maincrop potatoes (sliced quite thin)
• Large knob of butter
• 300ml double cream
• Full fat milk to top up
• 3 plump cloves of garlic (crushed)

Crushed peas

• 400gms peas (fresh or frozen)
• Large sprig of mint (leaves only)
• Dash of double cream

Its always best to start with the spuds. Dauphinoise is one of those dishes of which everyone thinks they have the perfect recipe. Many trace their recipe's history back to the great chefs of French classical cooking or to an ageing French great aunt. I have developed mine over time and there is nothing very clever about it, I promise there will be no rubbing of cut garlic on the roasting dish as I have never found this in any way effective. Put the cream and garlic in a small pan and slowly bring to a simmer. Allow this to barely disturb the surface for 5 minutes then turn off the hob and allow it to stand for over an hour. Add a pinch of salt.

Rub the inside of a baking dish with the butter to ensure an even coating. Place the potatoes in any order and push down a little to minimise the gaps. pour over the cream whilst stirring it to ensure the bits of garlic are evenly distributed. Top up with the milk if necessary so that the level of liquid is just below the top spuds.

cover loosely with foil and place (on a baking try) in a medium hot oven. After about 40 minutes take the foil off to crisp up the top.

Add a little oil to a frying pan and bring up the heat until it is almost smoking. pop in the entire loin turning to ensure all sides and edges are sealed and taking on some crust. Then place the lamb in a small roasting dish and into the oven (you could add a clove of garlic and maybe a sprig of rosemary if you wanted to be flash). It should take 10 to 15 minutes depending on how pink you like your lamb.

Return the frying pan to the heat and add a large glass of the red wine, reduce this by half then add a similar amount of the stock and reduce by a third. Add two big teaspoons of the redcurrant jelly to the sauce and stir to dissolve. slowly reduce this by just a little. 

Boil a little water in a small saucepan and add your peas, boil the peas for 4 or 5 minutes then place them in a mini blender with the mint, a little bit of butter and a dash of double cream. Blend just briefly so you are left with a lumpy, bright green mash. 

Allow the meat to rest for a good ten minutes after cooking, then carve. Serve with a little tower of the dauphinoisse, a spoonful of the pea mash another seasonable vegetable (I used slim asparagus). Pour the the sauce around the meat and enjoy.

The match

Animal Brewery is the slightly more experimental, alter ego of XT brewery based in Long Crendon, in the shadows of the Chiltern Hills near Thame. Animal produce beers named after or around animals such as Squid Ink Black IPA, Jack Rabbit |American Amber and Hop Kitty. Many of their beers are only available as limited editiomns or at certain times of the year. Hop Kitty describes itself as a Citra Pale. And the Citra hop presence is very clear on both the nose and the palate though it is firmly grounded in an English malt base. The hop power was perfect for cutting through the obvious richness of this dish. The citrus and resiny high notes also lent a bit of balance to the dish. Overall a beautiful match that had me reaching for a second bottle.     

 

Langoustine on a bed of pureed cauliflower and samphire with langoustine bisque and Blue Moon

When I was first trying to teach myself to cook I read every recipe I could. It didn't matter if it was from a cookbook, a Sunday newspaper supplement, or on a scrap of paper; if someone had taken the time to write it down then I felt it should be read. After all, how else was I supposed to become the culinary genius that I wanted to be! It will come as no surprise that I have never attained the status of "culinary genius", there are no Michelin stars in my history and no restaurant critic has ever hailed me as the "next great thing" in a kitchen. There are many reasons why this didn't happen and one of the minor ones is that so many food items have too many names. Langoustine, Norwegian lobster, Dublin bay prawn and Scampi all sound delicious but they are also all the same thing! The sad thing about this delicious seafood is the fact that the vast majority of these crustaceans that are caught in UK waters are exported to the continent where they are properly appreciated. 

This dish is based on a classic sauce/soup, the bisque. This means that you get to use the shells of the beast in order to extract all of the flavour. This serves 4 as an indulgent lunch.

• 12 or 16 raw langoustines (frozen is fine)
• 1 medium cauliflower (broken into small florets)
• Vegetable stock
• Double cream
• 1 pack of samphire 
• 1 medium onion (finely diced)
• 1/2 bulb of fennel (finely chopped)
• 2 sticks of celery (finely chopped
• 1 carrot (finely diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
• 1 squirt of tomato puree
• Splash of brandy
• Bigger splash of dry vermouth
• 1.5 ltr of fish stock.
• Paprika

Your first job is to remove the meat from the langoustines. I find it easiest to twist off the head section ans use kitchen scissors to cut down the underside of the shell. Then use your fingers to open up the shell and pull out the meat with the tail. The intestinal tract should come out with the tail but check this and cut it out if necessary. (It does seem like a lot of work for such a little piece of meat but I promise it is worth it). Make sure you reserve all of the shell and head of the beast.

Swear down the onion, fennel, carrot and celery in a saucepan with a little oil until softening but not browning. Split the heads of the shells and remove the sand sack (if present) and the "tomally" (a green sack) rinse these if necessary. Add all of the shell bits to the veg and stir well. cook gently for about ten minutes then add a good squirt of tomato puree then add the brandy and reduce (flame it if you want to show off, scare your partner or set off your fire alarm but this is not necessary). Reduce until it is almost all gone, then add the vermouth and reduce by half. Add enough fish stock to cover everything and simmer for about an hour. 

Strain everything into a fresh saucepan (make sure you use the back of a ladle to squeeze out all of the juices) return this to the heat and reduce further, add a really good slug of double cream and reduce further. Taste and season.

Whilst the sauce is reducing pop the cauliflower in a sauce pan with not quite enough vegetable stock to cover them. Cover and boil the cauliflower until it seems a tiny bit over cooked. Add a large dash of double cream and pop into the liquidiser. Once blitzed pop back into the saucepan and reduce if necessary, you are looking for a thick smooth puree. Keep warm. 

Bring some water to the boil in another saucepan and add the samphire (do not add salt) boil for 4 minutes.

In a frying pan, fry the langoustine meat in a little butter with some garlic if you like.

To plate up, place a solid dollop of the cauliflower in the middle of the plate, top this with some samphire and put thee or four langoustines on top. run the sauce around this and sprinkle over a little paprika.

 

The match

Blue moon is a Belgium style wheat beer brewed in Denver in the states. In Europe it is brewed under license. I have never made any secret of my love for wheat beers of any type so this was always going to be a treat for me. Like many of its Belgium cousins, it has distinct coriander and orange overtones and this stood up to the sweetness of the seafood very well. For a whet beer it has a medium body so was not too much for the delicate sauce and the complexity of the biscuity wheat flavours gave great balance against the cauliflower and samphire. This was a lovely combination.