Spring lamb, also called early or summer lamb are 3 to 5 months old when they are sent away, resulting in a very tender moist meat. Whilst it doesn’t have as much flavour as lamb (since they haven’t had much time to graze) its still regarded very highly.
When choosing spring lamb look for firm, slightly pink meat as the older the lamb becomes the darker the meat and less tender.
I always like to cook my spring lamb Medium as its very tender, also I try and match it with light citrus flavours. Avoiding the heavy red wine based sauces and long roasting style cooking.
Warm salad w Citrus cured lamb cutlets
Serves 4 / prep time 2 hours / cooking time 10 minutes
8 fresh lamb cutlets
2 cloves garlic
2 tb olive oil
1 lemon zest & juice
Salt and cracked pepper
2 bunches broccolini, cut in half and blanched
4 green courgettes
1 pkt snow peas, blanched
2 tbsp olive oil
salt
black pepper
100g rocket leaves
100g cows feta, ripped into cubes
½ cup peeled almond, toasted
¼ cup dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 180*C. Carefully cut the courgette into small wedges. Drizzle both with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add courgette on to an oven tray and cook close to the top grill for 10 minutes or until the courgette just starts to colour. Remove from oven. Arrange on serving dish with rocket, feta and toasted almonds, hot broccolini & snow peas. Then place on lamb cutlets & drizzle with rocket oil
Citrus lamb chops
Marinate the lamb with the crushed garlic, lemon zest, juice and olive oil for 1-2 hours. Lift lamb from marinate and season with salt and cracked pepper
Heat a griddle pan, add the lamb chops, turn once golden and continue until medium well.
Rocket oil
100g rocket leaves
4 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
Bring a small pot of lightly salted water to the boil, drop in the rocket and then pull out again immediately, running under cold water in sieve until cold.
Using a hand blitzer or blender blitz the rocket and oil together until smooth.