Marinated Lamb with Pasta

You need to marinate the lamb for at least 12 hours. (Although I've done it for only a couple of hours and gotten away with it but the longer the better) Usually, the night before I'm going to cook the lamb is when I marinate it. If you can't buy a leg of lamb de-boned then you have to do the grisly work yourself.

For the marinate you'll need:

2 tbsp. Dried or grated rind from 1 lemon
3 tbsp. Lemon juice
2 tbsp. Sodium-reduced soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp. Minced fresh garlic
1 tsp. Packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. Hot pepper sauce

Trim the fat from the lamb and place it in a bowl or plastic bag. I find the big freezer bags great because you can reach into the fridge and turn the lamb easily every couple of hours. Combine the above ingredients along with the lamb and shove it all in a zip lock freezer bag and put it in the fridge. You need to remove the lamb from the fridge about an hour before you cook it.

I nice side dish for the lamb is pasta. The most important thing about pasta is to make sure it doesn't stick together when cooking so put some olive oil in the water.

Here's what you'll need for the pasta dish:

4 tbsp. Butter
1 cup Frozen peas
2 cups Broccoli, broken into florets
7/8 cup Heavy Cream
1 lb. Mixed green and white linguine (the green to add a little colour)
1 tbsp. Olive oil
2/3 cup Freshly grated Parmesan cheese plus extra to serve
pinch Nutmeg
salt and pepper

Preparing the meal:

Broil each side of the lamb for about 10 minutes for medium-rare. (15-20 minutes for well done) Once it's cooked, take it out of the oven and let it stand for about 10 minutes. Slice it thinly across the grain. What I like to do is place the lamb along the sides of a nice big platter and put the pasta in the middle.

While the lamb is standing make the pasta.

(1) Steam the broccoli.
(2) Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the peas and cook, over a low heat, for 2-3 minutes.
(3) Using a measuring pitcher pour 5/8 cup of cream into the pan, bring it to a boil and let it simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, until it's slightly thickened. Then take it off the burner.
(4) Meanwhile bring a large pan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the linguine and olive oil and cook for 2-3 minutes. (Until tender but still firm to the bite) Take the pan off the burner, drain the pasta and put it back in the pan.
(5) Add the broccoli, peas and cream sauce to the pasta. Put it back on the stove and add the remaining cream and the Parmesan cheese. Put a little salt and pepper in there and add a pinch of nutmeg.
(6) With a couple of forks toss pasta to make sure the broccoli and peas are coated with the cream sauce.