Soft Salad with Pecan Nuts
Serves 6

We start with a lovely, simple butter lettuce and pecan nut salad dressed with extra virgin grape seed oil. The nutty flavour of the oil compliments the pecan nuts suberbly.

2 heads of very fresh young butter lettuce
½ (125 ml) cup of farm fresh or best quality vacuum packed pecan nut halves
½ cup (125 ml) walnut or best quality cold pressed grape seed oil or olive oil
¼ cup (60 ml) Verjuice or 2 T (30 ml) aged balsamic vinegar
1 t (5 ml) Ina Paarman’s Lemon and Black Pepper seasoning
½ t (2,5 ml) mustard powder
a few chives for garnish (optional)

Wash the lettuce and spin dry. Arrange leaves on 6 fish-size plates. Dot leaves with nut halves. Shake together oil, verjuice, seasoning and mustard. Pour dressing over salad just before serving.

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Carving the leg after cooking is actually the real art. We have made it simple for you – see Cook's Tip below. Please do not allow the butcher to cut the shank (leg) bone – you use that as a ‘handle’ when carving. Ask him to fillet out the pelvic bone because that can cause obstruction during carving.

The leg can be cooked in the oven or on the Weber if you prefer the smoky flavour.

1 x 2 kg leg of lamb, do not cut the shank bone through
4 cloves garlic, cut into slivers
3 sprigs rosemary snipped into 2cm lengths
Ina Paarman’s Garlic and Herb Seasoning or Rosemary & Olive Seasoning
1 x 50g tin flat anchovy fillets in oil
2 T (30 ml) olive oil

Lard the lamb with garlic and rosemary. Mash the anchovies with the anchovy and olive oils to form a rough paste. Season meat. Rub the paste into the lamb and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. Bring meat to room temperature before roasting.
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the lamb on a rack over a roasting pan. Add 2 cups of water to the pan and roast the meat for 30 minutes.Reduce the heat to 180°C and roast for another 1-1½ hours or until cooked to your preference. According to the reading on a meat thermometer, medium done will read at 71°C.
Remove the lamb from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving. Strain the pan juices, remove fat, thicken with 1 T (15 ml) cornflour mixed with 2 T (30 ml) of water, taste for seasoning and add a dash of sherry and serve as a gravy, or warm one of our 200ml packs of gravy to serve on the side. Serve with rosemary roast potatoes.

Cook's Tip :  PROFFESSIONAL CARVING

It helps the carver considerably if the meat is allowed to stand for 10 minutes at room temperature before slicing. Far less flavourful juices are lost and carving is made much easier. An electric knife or very sharp carving knife does the job well.

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Broccoli works wonderfully with the roast lamb, and can also be replaced with fresh or frozen baby peas.

2 punnets long stem broccoli
1 T (15 ml) olive oil
Ina Paarman’s Lemon and Black Pepper Seasoning

Cut the very end bit off each stem on the diagonal. Rinse and toss with 1 t (5 ml) of the oil. Steam or micro-steam until tender but still bright green. Add the remaining oil, season and serve.

1 kg small to medium-sized potatoes, scrubbed, do not peel
½ cup (125 ml) olive or canola oil
2 T (30 ml) chopped fresh rosemary
2 t (10 ml) Ina Paarman’s Rosemary and Olive Seasoning

Cut potatoes into 4 wedges and towel dry. Place in a baking dish and pour oil over. Sprinkle with rosemary, tossing to coat evenly. Season. Bake on the lower shelf of the oven, at the same time as the lamb, at 180°C for 1 hour, until brown and crisp.

Beetroot develops in flavour depth if roasted, instead of boiled. Simply bake the beetroot at 180°C for about an hour, depending on their size, until soft. No need to oil, season or peel.

6 medium beetroot, baked or boiled
¼ cup (60 ml) Ina Paarman’s Honey Mustard Dressing
1 T (15 ml) whole grain mustard
1 cup (250 ml) fresh mint, washed and roughly chopped
2-3 wheels (100-150 g) of plain feta
2 T (30 ml) olive or cold pressed grape seed oil

Peel the cooked beetroot and cut into small wedges (± 8 each) season generously and toss, while still warm, with dressing and mustard. Marinate for a while if practical. Just before serving, toss the salad with mint and crumbled feta and dress with oil. Garnish with extra chopped mint and crumbled feta.

This is one of the recipes I enjoyed most at the Santa Fé Cookery School in New Mexico. Mexican Vanilla is not available to us, use one vanilla bean cut in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds into the milk mixture.

1¼ (310 ml) cups sugar
1 cup (250 ml) milk
2 cups (500 ml) cream
2 large eggs
3 egg yolks
pinch of salt
2 t (10 ml) Mexican vanilla or 1 vanilla bean

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Spray the inside of 8 ramekins or old teacups lightly with a non-stick spray. Melt ¾ cup of the sugar in a small dry frypan or saucepan over medium-high heat. As the sugar caramelizes, you must not stir – but shake the pan to incorporate the dry sugar. Reduce the heat to medium, so that the sugar does not burn, and continue cooking until you have a clear deep amber liquid. Remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour equal amounts of syrup into ramekins or cups, tilting to distribute the syrup evenly on the bottoms.

Remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour equal amounts of syrup into ramekins or cups, tilting to distribute the syrup evenly on the bottoms.In a saucepan over medium heat combine the milk, cream, vanilla seeds and pod and remaining sugar. Heat the mixture over medium-high until hot, but not boiling, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove the pan from the heat.

In a large measuring jug, whisk the eggs, yolks and salt until well blended. Slowly pour the heated milk mixture into the eggs, whisking constantly. Divide the milk mixture among the prepared ramekins and place them in a baking pan. Add boiling water to the pan to come about ¾ of the way up the sides of the ramekins. Bake the custards in the water bath for 35 minutes, or until they no longer tremble when shaken.

Remove the ramekins from the pan, cool, and refrigerate overnight. Run a thin bladed knife around the edge of the ramekins and invert onto dessert plates.

ESPRESSO FLAN : Make a wonderful coffee-favoured version by simply adding 1 or 2 T of coffee granules, or more to your taste, to the heated milk mixture and stirring until it is dissolved.

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