Main Dishes
Recipe| How to cook lamb chops
These citrussy lamb chops are just the ticket for a hearty weeknight meal – just add new potatoes and steamed greens.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp cumin seeds
- 2 tbsp coriander seeds
- 2 thick Barnsley chops
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil, for cooking
- 25g/1oz butter
- ½ lemon, juice only
- 1 orange, zest only, to serve
Method
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Heat a dry frying pan over a medium heat. Add the cumin and coriander seeds and cook for 3-4 minutes until toasted and fragrant. Set aside to cool.
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Transfer the toasted spices to a pestle and mortar and crush until fine. Pass the crushed seeds through a sieve to remove any husks, then sprinkle the sieved spices onto a plate.
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Press one side of each Barnsley chop into the spice mixture until well coated. Season all over with salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.
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Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. First fry the fatty edges and skin side of the Barnsley chops until golden-brown, using a pair of tongs to hold the chops in place.
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When the fat has melted, pour any excess into a small bowl and set aside. Continue frying the chops, seasoned-side down, for 8-10 minutes, or until well browned.
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Turn the chops over and place a knob of butter on top of each. Fry for a further 2-3 minutes, until the lamb is medium-rare (or cooked to your liking). Drizzle over the lemon juice and baste the chops in the pan juices.
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Serve the Barnsley chops drizzled with the pan juices. Sprinkle over the orange zest.
Lamb cutlets with mint, chilli and golden potatoes
If you put your halved baby potatoes on to steam before you get started on the lamb chops, you can fairly effortlessly rely on a proper meat-and-potato supper in around 20 minutes (plus a little marinading time). Steaming the potatoes is, for me, an important stipulation: a steamed spud is a sweet spud; more than that, cooked this way, rather than by boiling, the potatoes are dry when done, which makes them easy to fry to crisp bronzedne
Ingredients
- 500g/1lb 2oz baby new potatoes, washed and halved but not peeled
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
- 1 tsp dried mint
- ½ tsp celery salt
- 8 lamb cutlets, preferably organic, trimmed of fat
- 100g/3½oz rocket
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes or ½ tsp pouring salt
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
Method
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Put the halved baby potatoes on to steam.
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Get out a large dish – in which the lamb cutlets will fit in a single layer – and first pour into it the olive oil and sprinkle in the chilli flakes, dried mint and celery salt.
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Using one lamb cutlet as if it were a wooden spoon, smoosh the oil with its sprinklings around a bit, so that it is rather better mixed, then place the lamb cutlets in a single layer, turn them instantly, and leave to marinate for 10 minutes.
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Heat a large, heavy-based, non-stick frying-pan – big enough for all the cutlets to fit in – then duly place them all in it (the oil that clings to them from the marinade is plenty enough for them to fry in) and fry over a medium heat for five minutes. While the cutlets cook, check that the potatoes are tender, which they should be by now; in which case, turn the heat off under your steamer.
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Using tongs (for ease), turn the cutlets over and cook for a further three minutes. If you are going to make this an entire one-plate meal, strew the bottom of a large serving platter with rocket, or any other leafage you desire, and when the lamb cutlets are cooked, but still juicily pink, remove them to the salad-lined (or, indeed, naked) plate. Obviously, cook for longer if you like your lamb well done.
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Tip the steamed potatoes into the pan and fry for three minutes, then turn them over and fry for another three minutes, shaking the pan every now and again to make them tumble and turn in the hot, spiced fat.
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Using a slotted spatula or similar, transfer the potatoes to the plate of cutlets and sprinkle with one teaspoon of sea salt flakes (I like these plenty salty, but if you have more austere tastes or are feeding small children, then decrease the salt or ignore the command altogether) and the chopped parsley and mint.
lamb chops
