Sauce #65

All the fun of the fair

This week’s recipes are for spiced butterflied leg of lamb, hot & sour potatoes, and a roasted beetroot and carrot salad with a burnt jalapeño & tahini vinaigrette - which was meant to have lentils in it, but somehow I forgot.

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Some rain, finally.

There has been a drought in Yorkshire since early June. Very dry. Very, very dry. Very bad. The cereal crops are looking surprisingly well, considering, but the herbal ley we planted in the field below the house is going nowhere, nor is the new wood we planted in May just to the west. A lot of dead trees. Not a lot of growth. (I say ‘we’. I did not plant them. Whatever the opposite of the royal ‘we’ is. That’s who planted them.)

So to have something close to a sustained day of rainfall felt almost joyful, refreshing, regenerating.

Except for the fact that the rain deigned not to fall at the precise moment in the day that I’d said I’d take Nora and her friend Isabelle (Thom was at cubs’ camp) to the alleged funfair at Ripon Racecourse. Heavy precipitation seemed like the easiest way out of this grim proposition, and yet rain came there none.

I steeled myself and we headed in, if not quite lambs to the slaughter, certainly sheep to be fleeced. First there was the security man on the gate attempting to charge us £3 to park in a field. I grudgingly handed him a note. “Got anything smaller?” he asked. “Nope,” I lied. We eyed one another briefly. I shrugged a shrug that I intended to convey “I guess we’d better go home,” but he took to mean “if you don’t have any change, tough shit, we’re not paying for parking,” and duly waved us on.

A high-octane 90 minutes followed, for my wallet at least. The girls, it transpired, fell between the cracks of rides they deemed too ‘babyish’, and rides I deemed too ‘life-threatening’, though that didn’t stop them kicking the wheels of the majority of them. The mechanised swings got a thumbs down. The Toy Story themed train ride likewise. £12 down the pan. Another £6 were invested in a giant boot that they said was ‘weird’. Hair braids and face glitter hammered me for another egregious £24. Hook a duck for another fiver apiece and get rewarded with microplastics and goo.

Then we all went on the ‘Twister’, the operator cannily presenting the card reader only once we were all squished under the safety bar. The most captive of audiences. Another fifteen quid. We certainly got our money’s worth, with the ride continuing for what felt like a good one to two days longer than I would have liked. My entire left side still hurts. I bought the girls a fizzy drink, which they enjoyed, and a couple of hotdogs, which they did not.

After returning Isabelle to her mother, high on Lucozade and candy floss (Isabelle that is, not her mother), I took Nora to the shops, where I procured for her a packet of discounted sushi in lieu of the discarded hotdog (only the best for my girl), and for myself, my sister, and my brother-in-law (Rosie was off on a jolly), a bit of lamb and various other accoutrements.

This is, above all, a lesson in taking shortcuts where you can. You might, for example, make your own dukkah (and there’s the recipe from Every Last Crumb below), but could just as well buy it. Labneh (recipe also below) needs some planning ahead, or you can just pop to your nearest M&S and buy their more than passable, dare I say excellent, version.

Brother-in-law Jono, in turn, took a shortcut by bringing an already opened bottle of wine, which I think is an underrated and entirely acceptable thing to do amongst close friends and family. Particularly on a Sunday, when that bottle might well otherwise sit there, opened and untouched, until the following weekend (or at least Thursday), and possibly have turned to vinegar.

Speaking of vinegar, perhaps the highlight of this meal was the potatoes (though you may be fed up of my potato recipes), which were parboiled, then fried in oil with onions and paprika, the onions keeping their bite in a pleasing way, and then crucially finished with a big splash of white wine vinegar. What you lose in crispiness you gain in the joy of eating hot, heavily vinegared potatoes.

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Spiced Lamb Leg with Hot & Sour Potatoes

This marinade is a fine all-rounder - apply it to any cut of protein you see fit. You may need to increase quantities, but this was about the right amount for our bit of lamb.

Serves 4

750g butterflied lamb leg
2 garlic cloves, peeled
a good pinch of salt
a pinch of ground cloves
a few saffron strands
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes
2 tsp ground coriander
pepper
juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp yoghurt

for the potatoes
a handful of new potatoes, cubed
salt
2 tbsp olive oil
an onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tsp paprika
3 tbsp white wine vinegar