I absolutely love lamb but I have never cooked chops or ribs, purely because I find them a bit intimidating. I was contacted by Donald Russell who are an Aberdeenshire gourmet butcher and they offered me some lamb ribs, so I decided that I would face my fear and try something new! I’m glad I did because what I came up with is pretty tasty!

To feed 4:

2 x 440g French trimmed lamb ribs
200g feta cheese
3 slices of bread
1tsp red pesto
4 small sweet potatoes
1 courgette
1 aubergine
1 red onion
Vine tomatoes
Asparagus
Fresh mint & parsley
Olive oil

Donald Russell send out their online orders frozen and specially packed with dry ice to ensure the quality of the meat.  Mine was frozen solid when it arrived. It comes with a warning sheet which left me with the fear of losing fingers…

To start, preheat your oven to 200°C. I chopped up all my vegetables (apart from the asparagus and tomatoes) into evenly sized chunks. I did the sweet potato first so that I could parboil them to soften them before they were roasted with everything else.

When I’m making roasted vegeatbles I put everything into a large bowl, drizzle them with oil (I used Scottish Rapeseed oil infused with basil for this recipe) and toss them together in the oil before putting them in the roasting tray. The lamb takes 30mins (at least) to cook and the vegetables need approx 45mins, so put the vegetables in straight away but cover them with foil to keep the moisture in.

I had an idea of what I was going to do, and then I ended up just muddling my way through because I was too busy chatting as I was cooking! I made a kind-of marinade for the lamb by blending a slice of bread, 100g feta, 1 tsp of pesto and some fresh parsley together. I covered my lamb in it and then coated one side in breadcrumbs made from the other two slices of bread.
When the lamb and vegetables are about 15mins away from being ready, I added my asparagus.
Drizzle your tomatoes in the oil (I usually use chilli oil but I have none left, the basil oil works amazingly though!) and pop them into the oven at the same time as the asparagus.

Now we play the waiting game.

Oh hello.

Look at that! Cut the sets of ribs in half to portion them and assemble with your delicious sides.

I finely chopped some fresh mint and cubed some feta to sprinkle over the top. It was absolutely delicious. My marinade was a bit mental, but it tasted so, SO good! I’ll definitely be making this again!

I’ll take that as a compliment.