Sunday lunch: roast lamb, layered potatoes and rice pudding
Sunday lunch, then, and even though I say so myself, this one was rather a cracker. Given a unanimous 10/10 (unheard of in our house) and with the added bonus of being one of the easiest too. First up then is the main course:
Roast lamb with creamy layered potatoes
½ leg lamb (about 1kg)
1 kg potatoes
50g butter
300ml milk or cream
So for the lamb, just preheat the oven at about 180/gas 4, rub all over with a generous slug of olive oil ( a clove or two of smooshed garlic wouldn’t go amiss here either – or a handful of rosemary if you have it) and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Now just bung it in the oven and forget about it for about an hour and a half . For a whole leg, or a joint any larger than a kg, allow 1 hour per kg, plus ½ hour for well done meat (I know, I know, but I just can’t prefer not to eat my lamb pink – sorry and all that).
Remove from the oven and reserve somewhere warm, covered in foil. Place the roasting tin on the hob, add a dessertspoon of plain flour and whisk all the juices in with the flour. Now, add 500ml stock, transfer to a saucepan and let it bubble away gently until you’re ready to eat. Oh, and season to taste.
For the potatoes (I hesitate to call them Dauphinoise – I think they’re probably more cheesey), peel and weigh them, then slice thinly (aim for about 5mm slices, but don’t amputate your fingers trying):
Butter an ovenproof dish, then arrange the slices into a thick layer on the bottom of the dish. Dot with butter and season generously with salt and pepper:
… then continue with the next layer, again dotting with butter and seasoning well. Continue until you’ve used up all the potatoes. Pour over the milk or cream (or combination of both, or even chicken stock if you’re off diary), dot with the remaining butter, season well and cover. Stick into the oven next to the lamb. It should be ready at about the same time (an hour and a half). If it’s not quite there, remove the lid and continue to bake while the lamb is resting.
Now for English Mum’s Mum’s creamy rice pudding (hmm, might have to work on that title):
100g pudding rice
800 ml milk
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
To cook on the hob (I had no room left in my oven): mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down low and let the rice pudding simmer very gently for about an hour. Don’t cover it, and do watch it. Mine boiled over all over my hob and caused an almighty mess. I really must get myself a diffuser. We have bottled gas that comes rocketing out like nobody’s business and it’s difficult to get a really low heat.
Me Ma’s original recipe calls for all the ingredients to be placed in a buttered ovenproof dish and cooked in a low oven for a couple of hours. It’s honestly much nicer this way, although you have to stir the skin in occasionally (sorry there, skin haters).
Serve with fruit compote (I used frozen berries warmed up with a tbsp sugar and a big slug of blackcurrant liqueur) or a big dollop of raspberry jam.
This is really nice made with coconut milk as well (thank you, Bill Granger!). Just as a matter of interest – this amount serves 4, but we could easily have eaten double. If you’re greedy sods like us then I suggest you double up.
There you have it. Now retire to your sofa with a fat greyhound and the Sunday papers, while your willing, full-up peasants do the washing up. Bliss.
42 Responses to “Sunday lunch: roast lamb, layered potatoes and rice pudding”
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(Can I have some rice pudding now?)
Susan: Thanks. It was conditional on #2 not having to eat cooked carrots (he only likes raw) and not having to have the ‘fruit stuff’ on the rice pudding but still… not a bad result! And yes, of course you can – grab a spoon
http://fairycakeheaven.blogspot.com/2009/03/shining-star-of-wonderful-gorgeousness.html
TEE HEE
Tara: Oh yeah. It’s little fat grains like risotto rice – makes lovely creamy rice pudding. Nom nom. x
Jenn: Ah, much like my lot at English Towers then. Wish our local did food. When we lived back near Dublin our local did fantastic food. Nothing like Sunday lunch in a pub, is there? x
Spudness: Ah, thought you’d like that. Yes, maybe try it again – the vanilla makes it more ‘grown up’ and it’s less jellyish than school rice pudding somehow
i’m drooling at the very thought of those spuds. yump!x
I’m sorry about this but, rice pudding, NOOOO, it’s just wrong. I hate the stuff. Actually, do you know what I hate about it….the texture…bleurgh. Sorry!!!
Recently, OH said he’d have a go, so I bought some pudding rice. He then denied it, so the rice is still in the cupboard. Maybe I’ll have another go. :p
Sandra: I agree, but it makes Hubby want to yack
Jenn: Nooo, it’s gorgeous! Must admit I’m surprised Hubby likes it (and #2) ‘cos they both have issues with texture (Hubby’s worst nightmare is macaroni cheese). Weird.
Jay: Well, although the end result was nice, I did completely and utterly balls it up by boiling it over all over the place and having to add more milk! Still, turned out right in the end – yes, have another go
Nats: God yes, golden syrup. Nom nom. Might have to knock up a (double) batch now!
It’s true. Story of my life. I am the Queen of Spam
[...] – I love the commentary on this recipe and recipes in general, which says a lot for our culinary blog friends. “A recipe isn’t just a set of instructions for cooking, it’s a personal [...]
[...] – I love the commentary on this recipe and recipes in general, which says a lot for our culinary blog friends. “A recipe isn’t just a set of instructions for cooking, it’s a personal [...]
Beautiful.
Over here in the US, we like to add raisins to our rice pudding; golden raisins are nice as well as the darker sultanas. When its made right it can be heaven. Your recipe looks marvelouys and I never thought of raspberry jam on it! What a great idea. I like to jazz up my rice pudding with a dash of cinnamon and maybe a slug of Grand Marnier or Chambourd liquor. Yummy.
Thanks for the excellent recipes! Now I’m hungry again…
Many thanks!
When we vacation in Canada, I pick up a very fine granulated sugar that dissolves quickly in iced tea and similar beverages and, for some reason, we don’t carry in the States. But I don’t think they refer to it as “caster sugar”. We’re heading up to Canada again next month for a ten day stay, so I’ll pay extra close attention and bring back a few boxes of it.
Confectioner’s Sugar (also known as 10 X
sugar) has cornstrach mixed in with it when it is milled and blended and that’s what gives it that powdery texture that
seems to get all over the counter! Ever notice how difficult it is to pour that stuff into a bowl? Goes flying all over the place and you look like you’ve been hit by a snow storm!
It’s coming into strawberry season here and a popular dessert is strawberries served with a small dish of 10X sugar combined with a bit of ground cinnamon. Just dip the strawberry in and eat. Bliss.
My Mom always made strawberry shortcake to take advantage of this all too short season. With home made whipped cream, a real treat after a nice Sunday dinner.
To prep the strawberries:
Wash the fresh fruit, remove the green stems and leaves.
With a very sharp knife, slice the strawberries into thin slices lengthwise.
Put into a glass container, add about 1/2 cup regular granulated sugar (or use Caster Sugar!) and about 2 TBL of lemon juice. Cover the jar, turn over once or twice to stir up the fruit and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. That is your topping for the shortcake. Sometimes I’ll add a Tablespoon of Chambord if the strawberries look a little pale and haven’t quite reached their dark red “peak of the season” color.
What I usually do is spoon this out over pound cake and top with whipped cream. Ordinarily, I use the canned stuff, like Readi-Whip but for a treat, I’ll buy heavy cream, get out the hand mixer and beat the cream with about 2 TBL of 10X sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and, when I’m feeling frisky, 1/2 tsp of Grand Marnier liquor (or any of the citrus cordial type liquors).
Wow, I sound like a real dipsomaniac with my Chambourd and Grand Marnier, don’t I???
Mum, I’ll bet your chickens would love to chomp down on the strawberry tops. I always slice right across the top so a bit of the strawberry is still attached and the locals squirrels love that treat.
The chickens strutting about in your garden are adorable.
Thanks for the information!
Sorry to be so long winded, but we Yanks tend to be like that…
The thing is, I do not drink alcohol…no really, I don’t. Just seems like it, right? HAHAHA! I like to use it in cooking, though, always paying attention to the old rule: “If you can’t drink it, don’t cook with it”. Some of those so-called “cooking wines” available in the grocery store are so loaded with salt they throw the whole dish off.
You’d be amazed at the delicious flavors that come through when you use some of the fruitier wines in recipes. I like to use the fruit wines from Manichewicz, especially the Blackberry wine for gravies; I’ll use some in tonight’s lamb gravy, probably. I also like to sautee mushrooms and add a shot of the wine to the pan about 5 minutes before serving. YUM CITY!!
Chambourd or Kahlua (coffee liquor) in hot chocolate with whipped marshmallow topping…made the long winter nights more bearable with the record snowfall we had in Pennsylvania in February, 2010. Over 6 feet in total snow…WAAAAY too much, in my opinion.
For the shortcake part of strawberry shortcake Mom would use Bisquick that made sort of “freeform” blobs that baked
up nicely and had a bit of a crispy texture. Served warm with the cold strawberries and homemade whipped cream, the berry juice was absorbed into the cake. Mom would do the same thing, later in the summer, with fresh peaches. She and her mother were great cooks and they passed their love for the kitchen on to me. I’m very fortunate that way.
From the recipes you’ve shared, sounds like your Mom was a good cook as well.
Howdy!
Hope all is well with you, Mum, and that you are enjoying beautiful summer weather. How has the strawberry season been for you?
Just got back from vacation in Canada and discovered that the name of the sugar I had originally asked about is called FRUIT SUGAR. It’s packaged by a company called Redpath and it is intended to use as a sweet sprinkle over sliced fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, melons, etc. Yummy. It is so fine that it dissolves instantly in drinks making it very popular for the cocktail crowd.
Please enjoy your week and I wish I were over there to enjoy the beautiful English countryside. I’ve always been an Anglophile.
PAT
WOW! Many thanks for the ‘homage’! I’m blushing now. Enjoy the red beauties while the season lasts; frozen strawberries can be good but not as marvelous as those picked fresh from the sunny fields. On a recent re-run of “The Two Fat Ladies” Jennifer made darling tarts with strawberries, raspberries, red currents all topped off with a huge blackberry and glazed with melted raspberry jam that had been passed through a sieve to make it smooth. BEAUTIFUL little gems, mouth watering and so easy to do.
Another food memory from my travels to England, this one from 1973 or so: place 2 or 3 perfectly ripe strawberries in the botton of a champagne flute that have sugar on their rims, mush them up a bit and pour in frosty chilled champagne! Garnesh with another perfect strawberry and enjoy. Lord Montagu served this to our party of Rolls-Royce owners and enthusiasts at the Montagu Motor Museum in Beaulieu. Sorry for the terrible name dropping. We Americans don’t have official royalty, so we get all puffed up when we are around nobility of any degree. He was a very nice guy and easy to talk to, I found. Charming.
Queen Elizabeth is over here in New York today; probably cussing out the person who arranged her visit during one of the hottest weeks in recent history. Temperatures in NYC are at 101 F; here outside of Philadelphia we will reach 102 WITH humidity, if you please. I expect she’ll be glad to have her nightly drink of Dubonnet, lemon and gin over SQUARE ice cubes today. The cubes MUST be square.
Oy vey.
Enjoy your shortcakes! You can “spike” the whipped cream with chambourd or rum or Grand Marnier used in place of vanilla extract if you hand whip the heavy cream.
WOO-HOO!
PAT (trying to keep cool…)in PA
Hope you’re looking after Queeny! xx
Any help will be appreciated! Many, many [belated]thanks for your splendid lamb recipe, too. Delicious!
PAT in PA
Re: Lord Montagu. Back in 1973 I was part of a tour of England, Austria, Belgium and France that the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club in England put on. My boyfriend at the time and his parents had a lovely vintage RR that used to belong to the Queen of Holland. Basically, I made his life miserable until he agreed to take me along on the trip! There were about 100 vintage Rolls-Royces on this tour that was to commemorate the 60th aniversary of a similar tour put on by a fellow named Radley. Basically, it established the reputation of Rolls-Royce as being a superbly engineered vehicle and not “just another pretty face”. The tour covered the 4 countries mentioned and lasted about 3 weeks. Lord Montagu was one of the sponsors and “guiding lights” of the whole project and drove his beautiful old Ghost (1903) for the entire trip. After the tour we all agreed that our favorite country was England. Same (almost) language, nicer people, better food and the natives knew how to treat vintage motor cars and their owners. Favorite place (for me) in England was the town of Lyndhurst near the New Forest. So that’s how I got to “hobnob” with His Grace. He kept his sense of humor and beautiful manners throughout the whole 3 weeks and I was very impressed. Some of the kids on the trip liked being around him as well and that was nice. A sweet, kind guy.
I fully expect that Her Majesty has experienced warmer weather. I mean, after all, her family used to own large chunks of Africa, right? But I feel bad for anyone who has to dress formally for an event that is taking place in hot and humid weather. I mean, pantyhose are bad enough as it is…and she wear gloves a lot. Perhaps someone on her staff follows her around with a small air conditoner. If so, they should be knighted after this trip, they deserve it.
Many thanks for the idea of the lemons…I hadn’t heard of that before. Sprigs of fresh rosemary, yes, but lemon…hmmmm.
ENJOY!
Trying to keep the dear Queen from melting,
PAT in PA
I agree that the gloves ought to come off. After all, it’s not as though she has “dish pan hands”. But I’m not sure it would be a good thing to see her in cut-offs. After all, she IS a grandma and there aren’t too many ladies of her age who can sport that particular style. Does that poor lady ever get to just kick back and relax? She’s always got someone watching her, or taking pictures, poor thing. Glad I’m not famous! Bless her anyway.
One of the nice desserts I remember on my 1967 trip was at someone’s home after a tremendous dinner of roast beef, English style. A slice of pound cake, fresh strawberries with Devon cream and topped off with candied violets, candied mimosa flowers and fresh tips of mint. WOW. Super easy, super cool, beautiful to look at and lasted about 3 minutes! Delicious.
A nice cup of hot coffee was the finishing touch.
*rushes off to kitchen to see if we have pudding rice*
Yeay – we do
I hope you are well and enjoying your English summer. How are the fruit and veg crops coming along?
Is “pudding rice” different from the regular rice we have here? Long grain, I think its called. Wonder how rice pudding taste with wild rice? Brown rice is good and imparts a sweeter flavor to the end product than if “regular” white rice is used. Great with walnuts added in.
Coconut milk rice pudding, with maybe a hint of jasmine in it to give it that hint of India flavor to it? Or maybe use Jasmine white rice…? This is getting silly. Or maybe some Orange Flower Water or Rose Water (both available in Indian grocery stores over here). Here’s an idea for a cook book project for you, Mum, a Rice Pudding Cookbook! I actually have a cookbook that is totally devoted to meatloaf recipes. It’s a small book but has more variations than I thought possible to that ancient meatloaf theme. You could write it in your spare time! HAHAHAHA–I just cracked myself up. Hey, I’ll buy a copy or two!
Saw on a cooking show while on vacation in Canada a gentleman cooking up a Stout Chocolate Bread Pudding. Made with, probably, Guiness Stout, it looked amazing. I’ll hunt around and see if I can find the recipe if you’re interested. Served warm with whipped cream it looked super decadent. And what’s wrong, I ask myself, with a CHOCOLATE whipped cream maybe touched with Kaluha? Or Amaretto? Or…sorry to get silly again.
Off to pick some home grown Jalapeno peppers. Trying to cool off in 93 degree heat. As a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, I don’t remember it being so TROPICAL here. Amazing.
Have a great week!