Back to basics 2 - Roast lamb dinner

I've never cooked a roast dinner before in the traditional sense. I've cooked roast chicken with all the trimmings (thanks to Simon Hopkinson, delicious) and pie with veg and gravy a thousand times, although in my family a Sunday Roast constituted lamb or beef, occasionally pork and never chicken, so it doesn't count in my book.  I've even cooked a Christmas dinner before, but that was in China, the meat was cooked on the BBQ and I was hammered, so I can't even remember cooking much of it.  It was apparently very nice.

Why have I never cooked a roast dinner before? Probably out of fear of not doing it as well as my nana.  Nana used to cook us a roast every Sunday, and still does whenever I go to visit. Everyone thinks their family's Sunday dinner is the best, but my nana's is definitely the best. She's cooked it so many times I think she's becoming a roast dinner.  She drinks the cabbage water after the cabbage is cooked (apparently it's very good for you), and sticks her bare hands into the oven takes her roasties while it's still 200 degrees. My nana's Sunday lunch tastes unlike any other roast I've ever eaten.  Others may shudder; the slightest hint of pink sees the meat banished back into the oven for another two hours until it's murdered, and her vegetables are cooked until all the goodness is boiled out of them, sweetened with sugar and salted with, well...salt.  Sounds gross? Well, it's not.  It's bloody lush.  

So when I came up to visit my sister last week and she asked me to make here a Sunday lunch I bloody well went for it.  I wanted to jazz it up a bit but my creative flair, or whatever there is of it, had to take a back seat, as Helen wanted it all done as Nana makes it. I couldn't even honey glaze the carrots, although I was allowed to cook the lamb as it should be - rosy pink in the middle. 

I crammed a lamb shoulder with the deliciousness it deserves, ample amounts of garlic and rosemary, and served it with home-made mint sauce, roasties, roast parsnips, carrots, peas, a yummy gravy made with the meat juices and of course, Yorkshire puddings.  I know, I know, they're meant to go with beef, but what's a roast dinner without Yorkshires? 

Chocolate fondant and ice cream for dessert and that's a damn fine lunch.

Helen tucking in

Sunday lunch plus chocolate fondant makes for a full family