On the way home from visiting Kerri’s mum this afternoon, we wandered into the supermarket looking for some lamb to roast, but we couldn’t find any likely candidates. There were no leg cuts, and the shoulders would have taken too long to cook. But then we saw lamb neck fillets. We haven’t had them for a while, so thought it would be a good opportunity to get re-acquainted with them.
Kerri thought a redcurrant sauce would go well with them, so that’s what we did. Being in the mood for a proper roast dinner though, we put in some roast potatoes and parsnips. For the lamb, we browned the fillets in a frying pan and then roasted them in the oven; they only needed twenty minutes or so.
Because the lamb didn’t need long to cook, we roasted the potatoes separately from the meat for the first time in ages. The potatoes turned out really fluffy and crispy, which is the way we like them. Just done in olive oil, the lightness of the oil gets them to crisp up very well. When they are in the same dish as the meat, I think they tend to get a bit soggy from the meat juices – this does make them tasty, but it reduces the sought-after crispiness.
For the redcurrant sauce, we deglazed the pan with some red wine, before adding a little beef stock (didn’t have lamb stock; it doesn’t seem very easy to get hold of unless you make it yourself) and some redcurrant jelly. When this had combined and reduced a bit, we added some butter to give it a nice sheen and some cornflour to thicken it. I wish we’d had the forethought to make a proper roux, but this turned out quite well anyway.
Served with some baby greens and roasted parsnips, it was a really good and relatively quick (quick compared to usual at least) Sunday dinner.
Oooh – I was in the supermarket this afternoon and picked some lamb neck up but I couldn’t think what to do with them. This looks great!
I will love to join u at your dinner!
This looks fantastic. I can never find other cuts of lamb aside from the usual lamb rack, leg, and shoulder. Haven’t come across neck. They look scrumptious!
Lizzie, hehe brilliant, will be interested in how it turns out.
Mrs Ergül, will let you know when we’re having lamb again!
JS, we’ve had lamb shanks a few times, which are really good, but yesterday we also found shoulder shanks which are different to the usual leg shanks. We’re planning to get some of those soon and experiment with them.