Having left the lamb to marinade overnight I cooked it on the barbeque yesterday afternoon. It took about 45 minutes with some time added on for resting. I turned it every 10 minutes or so and slathered more of the marinade over it as it cooked so that it formed a sweet dark crust.

We ate it with a yogurt sauce made by putting handfuls of mint and coriander through the Magimix  with garlic, green chillies, crushed cumin, lime juice and about half a pot of Total Greek Yogurt. The recipe for both the lamb and yogurt sauce come from Simon Hopkinson’s The Good Cook. I remember first seeing the recipe in the Observer Food Magazine and it was one of those that you read and then straight away want to set about cooking. There is no doubt that it works best on the barbeque.

We ate it with new potatoes (Simon Hopkinson would not have approved as I was too lazy to scrape away their skin), a chick pea salad, made with baby cucumbers and green pepper, and a tomato salad which came from Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana. I didn’t quite follow the recipe using up pistachio nuts instead of walnuts and introducing pomegranate seeds into the dressing which was made by mixing pomegranate molasses with olive oil, sea salt and sumac. This was poured over and stirred into a bowl of roughly chopped tomatoes, sliced red onion and green chilli.

Very good it was to although not quite warm enough to eat outside.

I will need to get the cookbook.