Saturday night with friends

A simple tasting platter, Vegetable Salad with Barbeque Spring Lamb

Tonight we have Cilla and Karl coming over for an early barbeque.  As we are in the city staying at our friends wonderful home I don’t have at hand many of the ingredients available in my pantry so have decided to keep this very simple indeed.  We do however have some of the best and freshest ingredients available just down the road so fresh it is!

I’ll put a platter together to have with a glass of beer or wine, some roasted garlic bread from Brasserie Bread in Botany, Black Olives, a chunk of Blue Castello and to keep it simple 2 dips from the deli  -  easy.

I found a great piece of spring lamb – boned shoulder that will be wonderful slowly cooked with lots of basting (just a bit of lemon juice, garlic and mint) but I’m hoping today the highlight will be vegetables.

Spring peas, sugar snaps, asparagus and new potatoes with a sprinkle of lemon infused olive oil and  a squeeze of fresh lemon juice – it should be very tasty indeed.

I have pre cooked separately each of the veg making sure I dressed each part while they are still hot, you will get much better flavour that way.  Don’t forget also to leave the lid off the pot when cooking green veg – you will notice the difference.

For my weight conscious friends just go a bit lighter on the olive oil and for you steaming through your high blood pressure not as much salt but do use some!

As a side I also found some Roma tomatoes that looked so good I couldn’t walk past so they are currently in the over cooking at 100C (very slowly) sprinkled with a little sugar and a touch of salt, a little fresh thyme and a splash of olive oil, they will take a good 2-3 hours, will be semi dried and delicious to have with the lamb.

Serve the vegetable in a big mound over some baby spinach leaves, surrounded by that pink lamb, simple and tasty. For those at the table not concerned about their waist line the addition of a bowl of garlic aioli was a big plus.

As Nick was out playing golf this afternoon I got to pick the wine so a it’s a bottle of Scarborough Chardonnay from the Hunter and an El Coto Rioja, just to remind us of our recent time in Spain - I think that should work nicely.

Last minute Martin has arrived too, a little less meat than I would like but plenty of delicious vegetable and a big platter of starter, we had a great night with friends and family.  A few games of pool, a few laughs and maybe just one wine too many, it is Saturday after all.

If you would like more detail about any of this please ask,

Fresh is best,

Love Mary