“Seasonality was paramount and it was all about bags of flavour, forgotten cuts of meat, underused vegetables such as Swiss chard, Jerusalem artichokes, and cavolo nero, and unsung heros like turnips.”

Anthony Demetre, writing in Food & Travel Magazine

As I explained in my previous blog on lamb leg steaks (with courgettes) because leg steaks come from the leaner part of the animal and have a fair amount of muscle on them they can be a bit tough so it’s important to marinate them first (and you can freeze them in the marinade in plastic bags). You also need to make sure you allow time for resting – about half the cooking time. But the upside is that they have a lot of flavour.

For the cooking method for the baby turnips go here, and for the truffled mash go here. If you can’t get baby turnips, try substituting marinated artichokes.

This dish serves 2

Recipe for the joyfully jawdropping juices

Start making this first – you can sort out the lamb, truffle and turnips while it is reducing.

• 1 banana shallot
• 4 tbsps of whatever alcohol you used for the marinade
• 1 cup/240 ml beef/veal/lamb stock (made with one stock cube)
• couple knobs (20g) of butter

1. Chop the banana shallot finely, and fry in a knob of butter over a medium heat in a small saucepan until it starts to take on a golden look.
2. Add the alcohol and the rest of the marinade and reduce until it becomes a bit syrupy.
3. Add the stock and reduce again to about a third of the volume.
4. Move the pan to the side a little off the heat and whisk in (cappuccino whisk) the other knob of butter to make the sauce glossy and everyone gasp and say they had no idea you did this sort of thing…
5. Taste it – there was seasoning already in the marinade so you may not need to add any – but add salt and pepper if you judge it needs it.
6. If you’ve gone over the top and reduced a bit too much (I usually err in the other direction as I’m too impatient to wait but if I’ve got going with the other items in this meal I might have got carried away and forgotten about it) you can add water.

Recipe for the lamb and marinade

• 2 x 175g lamb leg steaks
• 2 tbsp olive oil, plus an extra glug of rapeseed oil (Brock & Morten’s from the Peak District is wonderful) for frying
• 1 tbsp honey (lavender or thyme is nice)
• 2 tbsp red vermouth (Martini), or marsala, or port
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
• ½ tbsp of dried mixed herbes de provence
• smoked salt and Indonesian long pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 210°C and put a frying pan over a moderate heat.
2. Take the steaks out of the marinade – don’t bother to clean them off too much – and drizzle a little extra rape seed oil over them, massage in. Reserve the rest of the marinade.
3. Fry in the hot frying pan about two minutes each side to sear. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO AGITATE.
4. Put the steaks onto an oiled and foiled (easier to wash up) baking tray and cook for about four minutes – bit longer if you don’t like it rare.
5. Rest for about four minutes.

© 2014 Saucy Dressings