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Sunday 26 January 2014

Sunday roast with a difference.

I managed to pick up a bargain in the supermarket again. I do so love it when they reduce their meat in perfect time for Sunday. A nice rack of lambs ribs with a garlic and lemon baste for slow cooking. Perfect if you have plenty to do and visitors too. Having prepared a nice caraway seed cake at breakfast so it was fresh for our visitors when they came round for afternoon tea and got our breakfast ready it was time to get things clean and tidy.

Once the decks were clear then I filleted the farmed turbot I also managed to get yesterday. I love it when the fish is fresh enough to still have the slime that indicates it is newly caught. These turbot did not disappoint. Thanks to a fish course down at Rick Steins some years ago I am more than capable of cleaning and filleting fish quickly and  efficiently. I soon had 8 good fillets that were soon vac packed with chunks of the watercress sauce I made up and froze yesterday. In short order there were two tasty meals in the freezer ready for a quick cook in the sous vide after a busy day at work.

With supper in a few hours the lamb went into the oven at 160C for some 3.5 hours. This will make it nice an succulent. Finally I had a little time to relax. A nice walk during one of the rare dry spells in the UK at the moment. An excellent pint of Hogs Back T.E.A (a local real ale) and it was time to head back to put the accompaniment to the lamb in the oven. Neither of us fancied a standard roast and a large butternut squash had arrived in the veg box on Friday so I decided to roast off half of the squash for an hour and fifteen minutes (45 minutes if it had been at 180C ) minutes. Meantime I quartered and sliced a good size leek and softened that off in a little olive oil. Once the squash was soft I scooped out the flesh. Mashed it with a little butter and pepper. Mixed in the leek, some walnuts (50g) and some Stilton cheese (80g) . The lamb was taken out of the oven and given some time to rest. Meanwhile I re-filled the butternut squash skin with the mixture and returned it to the oven at 180C for a further 15 minutes. A quick gravy to coat the meat and it was time to serve up. I poured a teaspoon of maple syrup over each of the butternut squash portions and we were ready to eat.

I've always liked the term unctuous when directed at food. It conjures up a creamy or luxuriantly oily dish. This was exactly that. The creamy butternut squash and the Stilton made for a soft and very creamy accompaniment for a delicious cut of lamb.

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