Woodfired Lamb, Roast Roots & Salsa Verde
This is a fantastic dish to get your tastebuds jangling – succulent lamb, intense roast roots and zingy salsa verde, full of herby and citrus hits. Check out how David cooks it in this woodfired workshop on our youtube channel and all the details are in the recipe below.
Ingredients
4 lamb chump chops, about 150g each
200g each raw carrots and beetroot, washed and cut into chunks (we don’t peel ours, just give them a good scrub but peel them if you want to)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
Finely grated zest and juice 1 lemon
1tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tbsp capers, drained
Small handful each fresh parsley, mint, oregano, chives and coriander – destalked if necessary and roughly chopped (don’t bother taking the leaves off the stalks for the parsley or coriander, that’s all flavour and completely edible; the mint and oregano might need destalking depending on how thick their stalks are)
Olive oil
Oven State, equipment etc
Small fire burning in a well-heated oven from 3-5 Mississippi
Heat deflector is very useful to prevent side scorch and keep the floor space to a maximum
Griddle pan for the chops
A few small sticks of kindling for building up the fire to grill the chops
A blowpipe to really get oxygen into the embers to ignite the wood
Method
1. Preheat a pan in the oven at 3 Mississippi.
2. Toss the beetroot and carrots with a little olive oil and seasoning and put in the preheated pan from the oven with a satisfying sizzle! Put the pan to the back of the oven where it’s hottest to cook the veggies through; keep an eye on them and prod them with a sharp knife from time to time to test for done-ness.
3. Make the salsa verde – put the garlic, mustard, lemon zest and capers in a mortar with a good pinch of seasalt and bash them up with a pestle – or do it in a mini food processor. When this is smooth, add the roughly chopped herbs and bash those up too until smoothish; add the lemon juice and a couple of tablespoons of the olive oil and mix together to get a thick sauce.
4. Put the lamb chops in a cold ridged pan and put them in the front of the slightly cooler oven – 5 Mississippi – to render out the fat. Cook them like this so they are uncoloured but starting to cook through for about 6 minutes, turning them over half way. Check that the veggies are cooked and if so, just keep them warm at the door of the oven.
5. Once the fat is coming out of the chops and they are starting to cook through, increase the heat in the oven to 3 Mississippi by adding some small sticks to the embers. Add some oxygen to the base of the fire with your blowpipe to ignite the kindling and then push the griddle pan of chops to the back of the oven so they grill beneath the flames and colour up.
6. Put the roast roots on your serving plate and add the grilled chops on top. Spoon over some of the salsa verde and serve at once. 
Alternatives
- Use different herbs in the salsa verde – tarragon, basil and chervil all work well. Don’t add sage, thyme or rosemary as they are too dominant.
- Stir some of the salsa verde into some mayonnaise and use in roast chicken sandwiches or stir some of it into some Greek yoghurt and use as a dip for vegetable crudités or crisps.
- Instead of lamb, grill some chicken breast or a beef steak and serve that with the roots and salsa verde.
- Use different veggies in the mix – parsnips, celeriac, squash, onions, peppers all work well.
- Try different lamb chops; we really like the chump chops but do try others or a small butterflied leg joint if you like something to carve into.
Wine Suggestion
Tricky this one as there are so many flavours going on – the zingy, punch salsa, the rich meat, the sweet carrots and the earthy beetroot. Suzie from Michael Sutton’s Cellar thinks you’ll enjoy one of the following wines with your lamb –
- For the red, go with a young Bordeaux as there’s plenty of astringency in it which the lamb & the salsa verde will soften.
- For white, try a Sauvignon from the Loire or a young oaked Chenin blanc or an oaked white Bordeaux. Salsa verde likes oak!
That’s it for now!
We hope you like this woodfired workshop – do please leave us a thumbs up and a comment here on the youtube page – it really helps our rankings! And if you’re liking what we’re doing and would like to support us in creating more, do buy us a virtual coffee on our Ko-fi channel; just a fiver!
Huge thanks and catch up soon
David and Holly (and Scout!)x
