Winter Indulgence

This meal is not for the faint-hearted. It is rich and luxurious - perfect for a wintery evening.

Baked camembert cheese with honey, walnuts and dried fig
Toast walnuts and cut up dried fig  - set aside. Take a wheel of camembert cheese and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. While still hot, drizzle with runny honey and garnish with the figs and walnuts. Serve immediately with very thin crackers - I used wafer biscuits which made it less heavy (you cannot use the word light!)

Garlic & Herb Roast Lamb with roast potatoes, snap peas and butternut corn rounds.
We used Martha Stewart's recipe for the lamb which can be found at the link below with some variations. Firstly we did not leave it for eight - 24 hours - only for about four. Secondly, we baked it for four hours at 140 degrees. This  resulted in the most tender, soft, fragrant meat.
The snap peas were boiled for 2 minutes and then transferred to a hot pan with balsamic vinegar and mint for another 2 minutes (if that).
Our friends, Roelof and Amelia provided the butternut and corn rounds. Watch this space as Roelof will be cooking Paella next week!
http://www.marthastewart.com/316446/roast-leg-of-lamb-with-garlic-and-herbs



The Most Chocolate Pudding
Caitlyn and I made these chocolate pots earlier on in the day. We doubled up the ingredients on the following recipe.
http://www.countryliving.com/recipefinder/most-chocolate-pudding
We followed the instructions exactly - so we can vouch for this recipe - it works perfectly!
It is very rich and not the ideal choice after all the cheese and lamb but it is still a scrumptious dessert for chocaholics.

Note my beautiful new table linen and place mats were gifts from Tara-Lynn and Caitlyn-Jane

Camellia's Lamb Rogan Josh

 While Caitlyn and I were off at the movies watching Beauty and the Beast, John was cooking up a storm. His version of Camellia Panjabi's Lamb Rogan Josh was just beautiful. Lamb is my favourite curry meat albeit a bit fatty. Boiling the meat before cooking really solved that without compromising the flavour (ginger also helps). 

This is a really fragrant curry as it uses many spices which John purchased from Spice Invasion, Royal Oak. 

Lamb Rogan Josh

From Camellia Panjabi’s “50 Great Curries of India”

Serves Four

700g lamb, diced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

Salt

2 teaspoons chilli powder

1 teaspoon paprika

100ml yoghurt

250g shallots (I used onions)

Oil

4 cloves

2 black cardamoms

4 green cardamoms

2 bay leaves

1 blade of mace

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground fennel seed

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

Boil the lamb (and any bones) with the garlic and some salt in 2 pints of water for 20 minutes. Remove the meat and set aside, reserve the cooking water.

Fry the onions until lightly browned. Add the cloves, cardamom, bay leaves and the mace and fry for one minute. Add the coriander, fennel, ginger, turmeric, chilli powder and paprika with two tablespoons of water and stir continuously for two minutes.

Add the meat, cook for five minutes. Lower the heat, add the yoghurt and cook for another five minutes.

Add salt and the reserved cooking water (topped up with tap water if necessary to make 800ml). Cook until tender, remove the blade of mace and the cardamoms if you can find then - they are unpleasant if you bite into them).