Last night I wrote about Erica von Trapp’s recipe for perfect sweet potato chips. I liked them so much I’m doing them again tonight except tonight rather than baked salmon I’m letting loose and making a slow roasted roll of lamb shoulder. It’s been a few months since I’ve roasted a piece of red meat. I’ve eaten so much salmon and skinless chicken meat in an effort to keep my blood chemistry healthful I felt it was time for a treat.
I thought I would combine some sweet potato chips, some leftover quinoa rice and kale plus a cob of sweet corn with my roast lamb. I knew I would only eat a little meat and keep the rest for lunches this week at work.
- 1 large sweet potato washed and dried
- 2–3 tablespoons of olive oil
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- Erica suggests cinnamon but I went with chilli flakes and cracked black pepper
- Lamb loin roast (sorry I wanted shoulder but couldn’t find any)
- Leftover quinoa rice (½ cup)
- Quinoa (½ cup)
- Kale (½ bunch)
- Red wine (½ cup)
- Chicken stock (½ cup)
- Sweet corn (1 cob)
- Cut the sweet potato in half, then cut 1 cm thick batons.
- Cut again perpendicular to make 10 cm long chips.
- Repeat with other half.
- In large bowl, soak cut potatoes in room temperature water for at least 2 hours, can leave overnight.
- Strain and rinse potatoes, and leave them in the strainer to dry off while you pre-heat your oven to about 200 °C.
- In large bowl, toss with olive oil and sea salt, and lay on large baking sheet with no overlap.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, turning a few times if you want them really evenly colored.
- You’ll know they’re done when you can poke a fork through them easily and the outside is crispy.
- Remove from oven, salt a bit more if you’d like, and serve.
- Wet the cob of sweet corn under some running water, wrap in aluminium foil and put into the oven for 1 hour.
- Let the lamb get to room temperature
- Place the lamb on a trivet in a baking tray
- In the tray add the leftover quinoa rice, extra quinoa and kale plus some red wine and stock
Tonight I’m also trying some pickled onions using a recipe from a new friend. I met Barry while visiting Winnipeg. He’s a scientist and a food lover. One of the great things about my work is the connection I can make with like minded people from around the world.
I’m going to call this recipe Bazza’s pickled onions because if he was Australian he’d be called Baz or Bazza just like I get Gaz or Gazza.
- Onion. Whatever variety you like.
- Lime juice. My guess is lemon juice would also work.
- Red wine vinegar. I’m not a connoisseur so I assume the more expensive the better. I bought a bottle for a few dollars from Coles.
- Salt. I used some sea salt.
- Slice the onion very thinly into rings (or half rings).
- Put into a container with a tight lid. The container should not be much larger than the cut onions (you could use a ziploc bag).
- Add the juice of one or two limes (for 1 onion), they don’t need to me immersed. I used lemons because I didn’t have any limes.
- A tablespoon of red wine vinegar
- A pinch of salt.
- Let the onions pickle in the refrigerator for 3–4 hours minimum, with occasional turnovers to mix the juice over all the onions.
- The pickled onions will keep for at least a week.
- You can use the leftover juice for salad dressing.
As it turns out I forgot to add some pickled onions to the meal until after I shot the photographs. How stupid of me.
I reckon sweet potato and the pickled onions go really nicely with lamb. This was a delicious meal. I’m grateful to Erica and Barry for their contribution to the concept of this meal.
If you want to see the photographs as a gallery click here. Click on one image to see it full size. To see the EXIF data (including a map if the photograph was geotagged) click on the information (i) icon in the top right corner. You can navigate through the gallery using the arrow keys or by swiping if you’re using a tablet or smartphone.
Here is a slideshow of the sweet potato chip making
Yes you have eaten a lot of salmon, quinoa and kale! Do you eat the lamb fat too? I love the fat on roasts!
I confess Lorraine, I eat the fat, I love lamb fat especially roast lamb. Back in the day I’d slowly roast a lump of rump with a big thick layer of fat and render the dripping. The fat on the rump had an amazing taste after five hours.