Nigel Slater’s recipes for lamb with apricots and asparagus hollandaise | Nigel Slater

Spring meals that balance hearty fare with new season joy

The froth of cherry blossom, fat bunches of asparagus and spring sunshine are here to lift our spirits, but these first spring days often end with a certain chill and the need for what I call “a proper dinner”. A glowing pot of lamb perhaps, left to putter away in the oven, the meat slowly nudged towards tenderness by a couple of hours in a mildly spiced tomato sauce. I did just that this week, stirring in a deep, fragrant warmth with a spoonful of rose harissa. I introduced tart little dried apricots and the fizz of lemon, partly to put a spring in its step and partly because I like the marriage of lamb and apricots. Everyone wiped their plates clean with leaves of pink-tipped chicory – perky, like rabbits’ ears – and slices of what is probably the last of the year’s blood oranges.

The week had already had something of a celebratory ring to it. I had found a couple of bunches of early asparagus and brought them home, cradled at the top of the shopping bag to protect the fragile tips. The occasion felt special enough to make a bowl of hollandaise sauce made all the more seasonal with a handful of wild garlic leaves. We piled the asparagus and sauce on to thick slices of toasted focaccia to make the somewhat spendy spears go further.

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