I’ve greatly enjoyed watching Rick Stein’s new TV series, Rick Stein’s Food Stories, in which he travels around UK exploring food traditions and the country’s favourite foods. In each episode, he heads back to his kitchen in Padstow, Cornwall a couple of times to cook up something which reflects the foods he’s been looking at, often using produce given to him. In one episode, after visiting a farmer who rears sheep on a Welsh salt marsh, he roasts a rack of lamb and serves it with Dauphinoise potatoes and a ‘melange of summer vegetables’.  I love lamb and liked the look of the vegetable melange, which contains flageolet beans, as I remembered often serving these with roast lamb years ago. I used to tip a tin of the beans into the roasting pan near the end of the cooking and they’d pick up the glorious flavour of the caramelised meat juices.

Well, Rick may have called his mix ‘summer’ vegetables, and indeed these are all vegetables that come into season in summer, but he uses frozen and canned vegetables so really they can be cooked his way at any time of the year and with spring in the air, its official start in ten days’ time, it felt like a good time to try this out.

My son was coming round for supper and so I was cooking for just the two of us and while I could have bought a small rack of lamb, I picked up four lovely organic lamb loin chops in Waitrose. I also decided against Dauphinoise potatoes, which I like a lot but didn’t fancy anything that rich and creamy so would simply roast some potatoes. I’ve taken to always roasting new potatoes now. I much prefer them for their texture and sweet taste, cutting them quite small so there’s lots of caramelised edges. As for the ‘melange’, well frozen broad beans and peas were sitting in my freezer already and I bought a tin of flageolet beans. I always have shallots – which I also use a lot – and picked out a large one as Rick uses a banana shallot. Mint is growing on my windowsill but I bought some flat-leaf parsley as the parsley in a pot in my garden is looking a little sad. I also decided fairly last minute to add a little stock to the mixture as it seemed too dry to me and so I threw in three of my home-made stock cubes. I always freeze some home-made chicken stock in an ice-cube tray as it’s so useful to have some for gravies and dishes like this.

The whole meal would be straightforward. Son and I talked about how Rick’s recipes are very much for the home cook. And this isn’t a criticism – it’s an enormous bonus. So much cooking on TV now is highly complicated, while Rick simply looks at great produce and a reasonably simple way to cook and enjoy it.

The meal was a joint effort. I prepared much of it but left son to griddle the chops as I’m happy to concede he’s better at it than me. I put the chops in a simple marinade and prepared the veg. We sat down for a little fizz and nibbles first as it was Mother’s Day here. Son came bearing gifts, including some lovely Rioja wine and posh breadsticks from Whole Foods. My daughter had sent some cans of very delicious English rosé fizz through Fortnum & Mason’s as well as a box of their dark chocolate selection.

 

Griddled Lamb Chops with a Melange of Summer Vegetables – Serves 2

• 4 lamb loin chops
• about 2 tablespoons olive oil
• a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• a good pinch of dried oregano
• about ¼ teaspoons fennel seeds, crushed
• sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Melange of Summer Vegetables

• 200g frozen broad beans
• 400g tin flageolet beans
• 100g frozen peas, defrosted
• 15g butter
• 1 large or banana shallot
• small handful fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
• small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• a small amount – about 100ml – stock

Begin by preparing the lamb chops. Put all the marinade ingredients into a shallow bowl, give them a good whisk, then lay the chops in it, turning them once so they’re covered all over. Then leave to the side for at least half an hour to take up the flavours.

Now prepare the vegetables. I have to tell you that as I started to prepare the broad beans, I soon declared to myself that I was never making this again except when baby broad beans came into season and didn’t need skinning! However, I soon got over this once I discovered a reasonably quick way of taking the skins off. You really have to do this. The skins are so tough and unpleasant, they’d spoil the dish. I read that if you took the beans out of the freezer, after ten minutes you can slit them open and while this did work, it was still quite painfully slow and not easy. So I decided to pour some boiling water over the beans, which I’d weighed into a bowl. I swirled them round, drained them, put the beans back in the bowl and covered in cold water. Swirl again and drain. Then I found that I could slit them with my nail and the bean easily popped out.

The skinned bean is a gorgeous bright green, very tender and with its sweetness a delight to eat. I have to warn you, though, this is not a last-minute, quick process and best to allow a few minutes to prepare ahead of cooking.

Weigh out the peas and drain and rinse the flageolet beans, so everything is ready to go once you start cooking.

Finely chop the parsley and mint leaves.

 

Finely chop the shallot and put in a pan with the butter and gently fry until soft but don’t allow to brown.

 

Now tip all the prepared vegetables into the pan and stir to mix well together. Rick says to cook for a few minutes to soften the vegetables a bit but it was at this point I felt it needed some liquid, so I threw in the three stock cubes and stirred carefully over a medium heat until they’d melted.

 

Then I added the fresh herbs and some seasoning. I mixed it all together well and let it bubble for about five minutes, then put a lid on and turned the heat off.

Meanwhile, I had the potatoes roasting in the oven. When they were ready, it was time to griddle the lamb. Leaving this with son, I warmed plates and a bowl for the vegetables. I gently reheated the vegetables. Once the chops were cooked, they went onto warm plates to rest for a couple of minutes. The roast potatoes and the vegetables – now in their bowl – went to the table. We were all set to go!

The chops were gorgeous – a nice caramelisation on the outside and pink and juicy inside. The potatoes were crisp on the outside, soft within.

And as for the ‘melange’ – well that was fabulous. Each vegetable retained its individual flavour but they came together so well and with the freshness of the herbs, there was definitely a feeling of spring about it all. Even if they are summer vegetables!

It did take a bit of effort to prepare those broad beans, but an effort that was well rewarded and made quite a simple meal into something special.