Lamb cutlets with grilled goat's cheese

I found this recipe in The Instant Cook by Donna Hay, page 102. It's actually a very simple recipe, not needing a lot of time or preparation, but I managed to stuff it up nevertheless!

Problem number one: it's not easy to get lamb cutlets in New Zealand. You'd think in the land of sheep, we'd have every cut of lamb available, but noooo, lamb cutlets can be bought only from Moore Wilsons and are expensive. It's basically a cut up rack of lamb, so I guess I could have bought one and separated them, but meh! I went with lamb steaks.

Now, there's a difference between lamb steaks and lamb steaks. I had a pack I bought from a supermarket and a pack I bought from Saturday markets, and what a difference! The smaller tender ones come from Wai-Ora Farm, and they usually go to various markets around the country. Those three were only $3.50 and way nicer than the pack of the two large ones from the supermarket.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

The different size of the steaks also contributed to my failure in preparing this recipe, as I overcooked the meat and it was rather dry and chewy.

The other difficulty in this recipe was finding the goat's cheese. I thought it'd be just feta, but then wasn't sure what the big deal is with it being goat's rather than cow's. But the picture in the book makes it obvious that it is not feta as it appears more solid and not crumbly. A quick google fu pointed me towards chèvre. Luckily New World Metro at the Wellington Railway Station is poncy enough to have a cheese island with all sorts of different (and ridiculously) expensive produce.

Place the lamb cutlets in a dish with the combined lemon juice, oil, salt, and pepper, and set aside for 5-10 minutes. Now, the book does not explain how you're supposed to spread the three tablespoons of liquid amongst 10 cutlets, so I just laid them out on a tray and brushed both sides.

Place the cutlets under a preheated hot grill and cook for 1-2 minutes on one side. I was too scared the meat would be raw and ended up overcooking it. Don't be scared, two minutes is plenty! Turn the cutlets and cook for one minute. Sprinkle with oregano or marjoram and top each cutlet with a slice of the goat's cheese. Grill for three minutes or until the cheese is golden. This instruction might have additionally contributed to my timing failure as the cheese never went golden. It didn't melt outside, it didn't brown, it just basically warmed. Once we started eating it, we saw that it had liquefied in the middle and was rather delicious, but the lamb overcooked :(

Serve with the lemon wedges and steamed greens or a simple salad.

Looks can be deceiving :)

Ingredients:
8-10 lamb cutlets, trimmed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons oregano or marjoram
8-10 thin slices goat's cheese
lemon wedges to serve

Dessert Wine and Raspberry Tiramisu

I got this recipe from The Instant Cook by Donna Hay, page 174.

I think it's pretty vital to buy the packet sponge fingers because if you just use ready made sponge, it won't have enough sweetness. Also, the texture between sponge fingers and sponge are quite quite different.

Mascarpone and whipped cream are almost the same in texture and flavour, and without the sugar of the sponge fingers, it's pretty much just butter! I always thought tiramisu is a difficult dessert to make, but really it's just assembly. Although knowing what goes into it makes me less likely want to eat one - heart attack on a plate! Definitely for sharing.

First things first, find a suitable container. The recipe recommends a 10 cup capacity serving dish. As I was planning to take this to work to share, I used a fairly large plastic container.

Place the cream in a bowl and whisk until soft peaks form.

 Whisk, whisk, whisk, sore arm. Screw this, bring out the big guns.

Fold the mascarpone through the cream and set aside.
Quickly dip both sides of half the biscuits and layer the base of the container. 13 didn't quite fit into my container, so settled for 12.

Spoon half the cream mixture over the layer of biscuits, and layer with raspberries. Repeat. Dust the top with cocoa and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. 

The sponge cakes come 21 in a pack, so I had two packs. Had enough to make tiny little tiramisu-in-a-lunchbox. I'd make a great mother, really, I would. Start the kid with a heart attack, he'd be the envy of all his chubby peers :)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups cream (single or pouring)
500 g mascarpone
1 cup dessert wine (I used Brown Brothers Orange Muscat & Flora)
600 g defrosted frozen raspberries (they only sell this in half kilo packs, so I only used 500 g)
26 store-bought sponge finger biscuits
cocoa powder for dusting (I used one of those chocolate topping duster thingees that come packed with Nestle coffee drinks)