HERB CRUSTED LAMB WITH LENTILS

For once I have a very good reason for being rubbish at updating my blog. Firstly, and probably most importantly, I got married…..secondly I had my birthday….and finally I became class rep at school (a full time job)! During this time I have eaten an enormous amount (no surprise there) so I am starting with the delicious meal Pascal and I cooked on Sunday.

As you can see from the blog recipe category so far, we do love lamb and this one I would really recommend. The recipe did say to use a saddle of lamb (prepped into 2 cannons, 400g each). We could only buy a half leg of lamb so used this instead.

Ingredients for 4 people:

1 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp dried herbes de Provence
100ml rapseed / olive oil  
800g half leg of lamb
Dijon mustard for glazing
Malt vinegar to serve (optional - we didn't use any)

Lentils
1 onion, diced
200g lardons
200g puy lentils (we bought ready made)
2tbsp dried herbes de Provence
175ml white wine

Herb Crust
1 lemon, zested
8 anchovy fillets, chopped
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
1 tbsp mint, chopped
100g croutons, crushed (we had to buy cheese flavoured ones as that was all the shop had)

Preheat the oven, ours was 180 C, but if you are fan assisted, 160 C is probably recommended. It will say on the lamb package.

While the oven is preheating, mix together the 1 tbsp of fennel seeds, the 2 tbsp of herbes de Provence & the 100ml of rapseed / olive oil.

Cover the lamb in this mixture - you need to get your hands dirty and rub it on.

Once the oven is preheated, cook the lamb according to the packet instructions. (Ours took around 1hr 10 minutes, it will also depend on how pink you like it).

While the lamb is cooking you can rest for a while however about 30-40 minutes before it is ready, it is time to prepare the herb crust and cook the lentil mixture.

For the herb crust, crush the croutons - we used a blender.

Chop up the anchovies, mint, parsley and zest the lemon skin. Then mix together with the crushed croutons in a bowl.

Cook the diced onion and lardons in a frying pan - you don't need oil as the bacon creates enough fat.

We had a packet of ready made lentils that just needed to stand in a saucepan of boiling water for 10 minutes - very easy!

A minute before lentils are ready, pour the white wine into the frying pan.

Then add the lentils and 2 tbsp of herbes de Provence and combine.

Finally take the cooked lamb out of the oven and brush liberally with Dijon mustard.

Cover with the herb crust, once again easiest to get messy so use a spatula and fingers/hands.

Finally carve and serve with the lentils - season with malt vinegar if you fancy (we didn't).

I have to say this was much better than I thought it would be and could be my favourite lamb dish so far - it is so full of flavour - anchovies and lamb should basically get married. Pascal doesn't even like anchovies but he adored this dish. Arabella had some the day after and loved it and I finished the leftovers today - I can't wait to cook it again!!