Recipes for my friends: lamb for Carl, and JP's easy lemon tart

None of us has seen our loved ones as often as we'd like to in the past year, and we've all had to find new ways to communicate affection. I've found brutally murdering some on Among Us as a good substitute for hugging, but for others, I've found myself sending them recipes and cooking tips. It's a nice way to chat with someone, as you're still feeding them and keeping them alive, and it gives the conversation a purpose. 

I've written out a couple of the recipes I've been recommending below. They're designed to be easy and adaptable so as to avoid an extra shop trip. I'd hope these get passed along more, like the way many of our family members shared cooking tips and tricks before cookbooks were the hot commodity. Also, cookbooks are a surface so hey could be a vector for illness right now. Stick to DMs. 
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Lamb chops for Carl

Carl is one of my closest friends, and probably the one who most regularly makes me wonder how he manages to feed himself. You may know Carl as a fantastic football writer, a prolific tweeter, or the man who cannot tell a plum and peach apart. Pre-lockdown, he loved bottomless Nandos before a cheesy comic book film, Bodens and NFL, and strategically appearing at my flat right when I was making carnitas. Carl's diet may at times be mystical and worrying, but he is one of my favourite people to cook for, and I miss feeding him sodas found at Asian marts. 

Whenever Carl asks me for cooking help, I have no idea what I will be working with. His shopping habits include ordering 5 bunches of spring onions. So I try and breakdown recipes into what is necessary and what is needed. This is how this method for lamb came to be. 

This recipe is an adaption of Dishoom's lamb chops and a greek marinade from memory. The main idea of this recipe in the vinegar garlic salt pre marinade. After that, you can build based on what you have in your freezer.

You can really go off on your own after that. Both will work on any meat, but in this case, Carl had lamb in the freezer. 

Base Ingredients (serves 2-4 depending on hunger) - 

8 lamb cutlets
1 tbsp Malt vinegar
4 cloves of garlic, diced finely/ 1 tablespoon garlic paste
1sp flakey salt
1tsp Pepper
Oil

Extras - 
Cloves of garlic 
Ground Corriander,
Ground Cumin,
hp/bulldog sauce,
Chillies
Ginger
Fresh herbs like mint, coriander and parsley
Lemon/lime

Put your lamb chops into a bag and add the vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. Coat the chops in oil and massage the marinade through the bag. Leave somewhere cold while you prepare your second marinade. 

Find the ingredients that you have. Try and get a balance - some dry spices, some fresh herbs, a little acid. The HP sauce is great if you're going for more meaty taste, or you could add spices like rosemary and oregano. If in doubt consult Samin. 

Dice/squeeze/mix your second marinade ingredients, taste for seasoning, and add to the bag. You can also just chuck the marinade in a blender and pour it in. 

Leave this for a few hours or overnight. The key thing is the double marinade is the vinegar in the first step to soften and flavour the meat.  You can kinda go wild apart from that. 

Grill your chops/ meat to your preferred doneness. 



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Three ingredient lemon tart for JP

If you ask my boyfriend JP what he'd like for dessert, he'll ask for lemon tart. Lemon tart, lemon cake, just a lemon piled with sugar is his idea of heaven. He's been my lockdown buddy, and so we've consumed a fare share of citrus desserts while waiting for zoom calls or watching New Girl again. 

Now love does oblige me to regularly make citrus desserts, but sense also obliges me to make this process as easy as possible, and so I have three-ingredient lemon curd. 

This is adapted from a Sally's Baking Addiction recipe. Feel free to just go ahead and use that. 

1 400gish tin condensed milk. 
180ml citrus juice (I usually miss lemon and orange)
4 eggs yolks

Get your tart crust ready - make pie pastry, crush biscuits with melted butter, or just buy a crust. You'll need about an 8inch crust, although you can go smaller/bigger for a thicker or thinner curd. 

Mix your curd ingredients until smooth, and then pour into your crust and bake at 180c for about 15 to 20 minutes. It'll be ready to come out of the oven when there's only a slight jiggle in the curd. Cool, eat with cream, fruit, or just in big slabs for breakfast. 

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Some things that are keeping me sane

Superstore on Netflix - Yeah it's not a food but it's good.

Posted frozen dumplings - Luna New Year is soon, and since I'm not going to be able go out and gorge myself on pork belly and jasmine tea, I'm funnelling my needs into delivery dim sum. If you're in South West England, I highly recommend Take A Bao as a way to fill your freezer with delightful dim sum.  Big online shops like Oriental Mart also have postal Royal Gourmet dim sum, the best brand, throughout most of the UK. 

Looking at these fancy cakes - Just look at them.