Sugar Crusted Lamb

This recipe is delicious and quick to prepare for a dinner party - and pretty unique too. This lamb generally comes out pink > a teeny bit undercooked so be cautious if you're thinking of serving it to a fussy eater. And a small advanced warning about getting an urge to sprinkle sugar on all your dinner - I'm sure it wont taste as good!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

8 lamb cutlets - 700g

Seasoning

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 large sprigs of rosemary

2 tbsp demerara sugar

A smearing of olive oil

Instructions:

• Preheat the grill to high, and place a baking tray underneath it to heat up
• Prepare the lamb by seasoning with salt and pepper
• Strip the rosemary sprigs by stripping the leaves off and discarding the stalk
• Mix the lamb with the rosemary and mustard - ensuring it's well coated
• On a separate plate, spread out the sugar and dip each side of the lamb cutlets onto the sugar
• Take out the baking tray from under the grill, quickly place the cutlets on and return to the grill for 10-12 minutes. Or as long as you can stand the smoking! The sugar does burn - but don't worry, it does not taste burnt.

Recipe is adapted from BBC Good Food, which is a fantastic resource.

Rosemary Chicken

This is one of the first things I learnt to make and feel very proud of. I've adapted the original recipe some what and a lot of the time it's a case of seeing what I have in the fridge. In fact - one variation was Lemon Thyme Chicken, which I think may even have been superior, but I couldn't dare to part with dear old Rosemary. A lot of people may find this quite dry, but I quite like that. This dish does have some orange in it, but for those like me, who hate a savoury orange flavour - do not be alarmed, it's barely noticeable.

Serves 2 - 4 depending on how greedy you are

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
150g carrots, sliced
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
A few sprigs of rosemary
10 cloves of garlic, peeled (a scary amount of garlic, but they go sweet and not stinky I promise)
500g baby onions, peeled
500g small new potatoes
1 orange, and the juice of 2
A big dash of salt and a small smidgen of pepper

• Instructions
• Preheat the oven to 180°C
• Prepare your vegetables
• In a large baking dish, place your carrots, garlic cloves, onions, new potatoes and bits of rosemary
• Drizzle over the oil, salt and pepper and mix together
• Place in your chicken breasts in the baking dish, getting them coated with the oil, and leave skin side down
• Halve 1 orange, and cram into your dish
• Put into the oven and cook for 15 minutes
• Take the chicken breasts out for a moment, and give the vegetables a good mix up and turning over before putting the chicken back in, skin side up this time
• Return to the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes
• Take out of the oven again, and mix in your orange juice. Give everything a good stir
• Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes
• Plate up, and drizzle what sauce there is over the chicken breasts

To make it cheaper, you could use different pieces of chicken, like thighs - but you will have to increase the cooking time by about 20 minutes. To make it a bit posher, use shallots rather than baby onions, and use whole baby carrots.