Last Sunday I was faced with a serious dilemma, 30 guests would be arriving at my house in 2 hours and I still had no idea what I was going to cook. A lot of people reading this will know exactly what I am talking about. As you can imagine it was panic stations, next stop Google! I decided to choose a recipe that was quick, easy to cook, ingredients on hand and would taste delicious.
All these fancy cooking shows seem to make you feel like you have to put on a 3 course meal anytime someone drops by for a cup of tea! So alas, I started to look up some different Barbeque recipes by Curtis Stone. What I found was great, nice simple and easy to cook meals that actually used ingredients I had heard of. Jamie Oliver had some great options too. I eventually chose Jamie Oliver’s recipe just because I couldn’t resist his Marinade for Lamb.
With the recipes chosen and food on the grill, I remembered that I had another family barbeque to throw in 2 weeks time. Should I stick to what I have done in the past or should I push the envelope and try something new? Any suggestions??
Jamie Oliver BBQ Marinade
Meat:
- Joint of lamb
- 4 to 5 cloves
- 1 tsp cumin
- 2 tbs fennel seeds
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 2/3 tsp salt
- a handful of fresh rosemary leaves
- 10 fresh bay leaves
- bunch thyme use the tips and leaves
- 1 whole bulb of garlic peeled
- peeled zest of an orange
- 4 tsp smoked paprika
- half bottle of balsamic vinegar
- juice of 1 orange
- a whole bottle of organic ketchup
- olive oil.
Make marinade
bash cloves, cumin, fennel seeds, black pepper and salt in a pestle and mortar. Roughly chop herbs, garlic, orange rind. mix it all with the wet ingredients.
Meat
Make sure you score the lamb before you rub this BBQ mixture on it and cut the chicken down the backbone then flatten, score the meat and rub in the marinade. Place all meats onto 2 roasting pan (lamb in one and chicken and pork in the other) cover with foil and put into the oven to roast for 1 1/4 hours on about 375F then dip into marinade again and place onto BBQ to crisp, for about 45 min. Be sure to put all the oven roasting juices into a pot to reduce, you could bring any remaining marinade to a boil and add to the pan juices too, use a rosemary bunch to mop or brush the marinade onto the meats as they crisp up
