The Sunday roast is joyous, generous, and the pinnacle of shared meals. It’s a gathering of family, in some cases the only one of the week, or a long and leisurely meal for friends. For all its generosity and pass-the-peas bonhomie, the dish itself splits into two halves: the hot roast and the glorious leftovers. This last one, frugal, economical, more humble than the carved roast, is sometimes as memorable as the original. Whatever, it deserves a glass of wine.
Cold beef, pink and carved thin, shares a plate with pickled walnuts and baked potatoes. Try cold roast chicken tugged from its bones, dipped into a bowl of garlicky, tarragon-flecked mayonnaise. Or, as we had this week at home, the remnants of a shoulder of lamb, seasoned with rosemary and anchovy, sliced thick and piled on to hot toast. We didn’t have garlic mayonnaise, but instead crushed peas seasoned with wasabi and softened with butter, layered with cool, roasted lamb and salad leaves.
I used the juices of the meat to cook summer greens – pink-stemmed beetroot leaves, young red chard whose stems were barely pencil thick, and peas from the pod. I also tossed in a few late shoots of sprouting broccoli, as tender as asparagus spears. I could have boiled the vegetables, but had instead decided to steam them in the roasting juices and stock, still in the roasting tin over a moderate heat. They took less time than it took the lamb to rest.
Roast shoulder of lamb with summer greens
I use shoulder for its flavour and the crispness of its fat. It is often cheaper than the leg. I am the first to admit a shoulder is less straightforward to carve than the other cuts of lamb, and I usually resort to hacking off large juicy pieces of meat rather than the neat slices you get from a leg. But do use a leg if you prefer.
Serves 4-5
shoulder of lamb 2kg
olive oil
anchovy fillets 8
rosemary sprigs 8, small
thyme sprigs 8-10
For the vegetables:
mixed greens 250g (purple sprouting broccoli, young beetroot leaves, red chard etc)
shelled peas 250g
vegetable stock or water 200ml
Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Place the lamb in a roasting tin and rub the meat all over with olive oil and season lightly with sea salt. Pierce the meat in 16 or so places with the point of a knife, cutting 3cm or 4cm down into the flesh.
Stuff eight anchovies into half the holes, rosemary tufts in the others. Scatter with the thyme, tucking a few underneath the meat.
Roast the lamb for 1 hour and 30 minutes, until the fat has turned translucent and pale honey-coloured, and the meat is light rose-pink. Remove the roasting tin from the oven, lift out the meat and place somewhere warm, covering lightly with foil. Leave to rest for 15 minutes.
Trim the sprouting broccoli and beetroot and chard stems, removing the leaves and setting them aside. Pour any excess oil from the tin, leaving the roasting juices in place. Place the tin over a low to moderate heat, then pour in the stock or water and bring to the boil. When the liquid starts to bubble, stir with a wooden spoon or spatula to dislodge the roasted meat juices and herbs, then add the peas, sprouting broccoli, and chard and beetroot stems. Leave the vegetables to steam in the roasting juices for three or four minutes, turning them from time to time.
Add the leaves from the chard and beetroot to the pan, turn them once or twice in the hot liquid until they have wilted, then lift the vegetables out and into a warm serving dish. Turn the heat up under the roasting tin and reduce the liquid to a thin, deeply flavoured dressing. Carve the lamb on to a warm serving dish or directly on to plates, then serve with the vegetables and roasting juices.
Roast lamb sandwiches with crushed peas and wasabi
Lamb works very well when eaten as a cold cut, but I think it benefits from being used at room temperature or, even better, still slightly warm, rather than fridge cold. So that’ll make this a recipe for a Sunday evening sandwich rather than Monday night.
Enough for 4 open sandwiches
peas 250g
wasabi paste 1 tbsp
butter 40g
sourdough bread 4 thickish slices
olive oil
salad leaves mustard, watercress, little gem lettuce, micro-leaves
leftover roast lamb 4 handfuls
roasting juices optional, but good if you have some leftover
Put a saucepan with 100ml water in it on to boil, salt it lightly, then add the peas. Cook until the peas are tender (3-4 minutes only if you are using frozen peas, but 4-10 minutes if using fresh, depending on their age.)
Drain the peas, add the wasabi paste and butter, then crush with a vegetable masher. I like them to retain quite a bit of texture, while others may prefer to mash them to a smoother consistency. Taste the mixture and season if necessary.
Toast the pieces of sourdough bread lightly on both sides. I have a preference for a few charred edges on the crust. Sprinkle the surface of the toast with a little olive oil, then lay a few of the salad leaves on each slice. Place a couple of spoonfuls of the crushed pea mixture on top of the leaves then add some slices of the cold roast lamb. Salt the lamb generously, then trickle over a few spoonfuls of either olive oil or the delicious hot roasting juices.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk. Follow Nigel on Twitter @NigelSlater
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