Tonight was Book Club - a gathering of friends to chat, eat, drink and exchange a few books. We usually decide on a food theme and all cook something, and today's was 'seasonal spring food', so I offered to do lamb to go with everyone else's spring veggies. Because the food has to be transported round to a friend's house, it's easier not to go for something that has to be cooked and served straight away, which made nice pink, rare lamb tricky. So I went for the slow-roast option again, but this time with lots of herbs and garlic. The herbs on the terrace have been going mad recently, so I was happy to give them a bit of a prune to provide a big pile of rosemary, thyme and oregano to sit my shoulder of lamb on. I threw in a bulb of garlic, some white wine, a bit of olive oil and then topped up with water to about halfway up the lamb. It went in the oven for half an hour at 180C to brown the top of the meat, then down to 150C for about 4 hours, basting regularly and topping up the water when it boiled down too far.
Keeping with the home-grown herbs theme, I also made up some fresh mint sauce; a big pile of chopped mint, mixed with a couple of spoons of sugar and some boiling water to dissolve it, then 3 tbsp white wine vinegar when it's cooled.
The smell all afternoon from all those herbs was wonderful and the lovely tender, aromatic lamb went down really well with the book club girls. It was even better served with some great veggies, including Ros's delicious peas with cabbage and spring onions, braised French-style - have to give that one a go myself.
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