Recipe: Spring Lamb, Pea, Asparagus, Ewe’s Curd on Toast

To feed four hungry mouths in your own Beaconsfield restaurant. 

Ingredients

1 saddle of lamb removed from the bone and trimmed
2 shanks
500g frozen peas
12 spears of English asparagus 
200g fresh English peas
1 banana shallot diced
1 loaf of crusty bread
100g ewe’s curd 
100g mint leaves
45ml vegetable oil
Pinch of chopped chives
5g chopped capers
2 sprigs of rosemary 
2 cloves of garlic
Dash of sherry vinegar or any nice vinegar
Dash of double cream
Black pepper
Salt 

Braising liquor for shank

100ml red wine
1 onion
1 carrot
1 bay leaf
5 black peppercorns
1.5L water

Brine

1L water
75g salt
3 bay leaves
1 tsp black peppercorns 
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 sprig of rosemary - bruised (pat to release aromas)

Method

To start, make the brine by placing all the ingredients into a sauce pan and bring to the boil.

Boil for two minutes then remove from the heat, then stir so all the salt has incorporated and allow it to fully cool.

Place the mint leaves into a blender with the oil and blitz until it's smooth. Then place it into a muslin lined sieve. Put it into the fridge and leave overnight. Allow the oil to pass naturally, discard the mint leaves and pour the oil into a bottle for serving.

Now for the lamb – place the lamb saddle and shanks into a container and cover them with the brine, then cover with cling film and place in the fridge for 24 hours. 

Then remove from the brine and pat dry and place the lamb saddle in the fridge again and cover.

Take the shanks and seal in a hot pan, add the vegetables and brown those too, cover with the red wine and water (1.5l). Bring these to the boil, cover with a lid and reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook it for 3-4 hours or until the meat breaks away from the bone with ease. Once at this stage, allow it to cool before removing the shanks. 

Once it’s cool enough to handle, remove the shanks and pass the cooking liquor into a clean pan and reduce, and skim any impurities and fats that foam on top of the liquid.

While the cooking liquor is reducing, pick the meat from the shank and discard any bones and most of the fat. Once the stock is reduced to a sticky sauce, add it to the picked meat and fold until all the meat is coated and add vinegar to taste. Season it if you think it needs salt or pepper - sometimes I like to add a bit of Dijon mustard but that's just me. Place aside until serving.

Now let's make the pea and asparagus purée…

First let's take the asparagus - with both hands, take each spear and place one hand on the base and one half way down. Then snap. Nature will tell us where it needs to break. 

If the asparagus is big and fat, take a peeler and peel the nice part from below the tip – it doesn't have to be perfect. Keep all the peel, and chop the bottom into small pieces.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and quickly blanch the asparagus then place it into iced water to cool. Make sure it is cool or you'll have a lumpy purée!

Next grab the bag of frozen peas and place all of it into a blender. Blitz until it's smooth - if you need to, add a little bit of the salty water to help it along. Make sure it's blended to a smooth purée, check the seasoning, then pass it through a fine sieve. When done, store it in a squeezy bottle.

Keep the tips of asparagus until you're ready to eat.

Grab the fresh peas and remove from their pods, wash them clean and blanch for one minute in boiling salted water, then refresh them in iced water. 

Once cold, remove the outer shell from the peas so you'll have two halves, take half of those peas and place to the side for later.

Now we are going to make a version of pea tartare - with the remaining peas, take a knife and roughly chop the peas by just breaking them down a little. Add the small diced shallot, chopped capers, a pinch of finely chopped chives, and place to the side. 

Take a good spoonful of the ewe’s curd and place it into a mixing bowl - whisk to make it pliable and add a bit of cream and whisk in until it makes the curd loose - we don’t want it to wet as we want it to bind the pea tartare. Now grab that pea mix and add some ewe’s curd until we can bind the pea mixture together. If there is curd mix left, don't worry we can use this later. 

Now for the most important part and the star of the show - the lamb saddle. Take it out of the fridge about an hour before cooking, and preheat your oven to 200 degrees.

Take a frying pan big enough for both pieces of lamb and so they don't touch each other. Get this pan to a medium high heat and drizzle a little oil. Place the lamb fat side down and turn to a medium low heat and render the fat from the lamb. 

When it's all golden and rendered, flip over the lamb and get colour all around the loin, then back onto the fat and place it in the middle of the oven. 

For 10-15 minutes, you want the core temperature to be around 50 degrees. Once done, remove it from the oven and put in a knob of unsalted butter, the rosemary and crushed garlic, and turn over the lamb. Baste it for about 5 minutes and allow it to cool and rest for 10 minutes.

While resting, finish the dish by warming the braised lamb shanks slowly in a pan. Cook the asparagus and remaining fresh peas in salted water - finish with a little butter and pinch of Maldon sea salt. Place the bottle of purée in the same water to take the chill away and give it a good shake.

To plate, place the braised lamb just off-centre and throw in some randomly dotted pea and asparagus purée. If any of the curd mix from earlier is left, drop it on the plate to style, then scatter the pea tartare.

Slice the lamb into eight even pieces, place two on each plate. Add three spears of asparagus and a sprinkle of fresh peas. Cut the toast into a nice rectangle with a good helping of ewe’s curd and half sit it on the braised lamb – then drizzle with the mint oil. Baby watercress or rocket shoots also work really well with their peppery taste.

Kick back and enjoy it in the glorious Beaconsfield sunshine.