Honey Mint Lamb

It's amazing how excited you can get anticipating those special moments in your life. Your first Micro Genius when you do well in exams, the first trip to a theme park and for me... Transformers on the big screen. Big ass robots in all their glory... what could you ask for more?

You just have to celebrate moments like these. How else to celebrate than to eat? Live to eat I say. The only problem was, what was for dinner?

So, while shopping for ingredients, I came across one of those pre-marinated meat that came in a vacumm sealed bag and the idea "conveniently" came. The Coles Honey Mint Lamb^TM served with mashed potato and sauteed mushrooms would be perfect.

Lamb
Ingredients

1. Lamb (obviously)
2. Fresh mint
3. Honey
4. Rosemary
5. Salt and pepper
6. Olive oil
7. Lime

Marinade

1. Mince the fresh mint until really fine. You can use more mint if you prefer a stronger mint taste.

2. Mix all the ingredients together in a separate bowl (makes mixing easier). I'm being vague about how much of each ingredients you should use. Generally, the amount of each ingredient decreases in the order they appear in the list above. Adjust to your taste.
3. The additional ingredients you see in the picture were just an afterthought.

4. Pour the marinade all over the lamb and put it aside for an hour or so.

Method

1. For optimum cooking, use prime lamb. But since I'm a miser, I got the lamb from the Special (cheap and not so fresh produce) section of my local supermarket.
2. Arrange the marinated lamb on a tray and place them inside an oven which has been preheated to about 200 degrees celcius.
3. Leave it for about 5 minutes and turn the lamb over before leaving them for another 3 or so minutes. There's no science to this. Just don't let it cook for too long or the meat won't be as juicy.
   

Mashed Potatoes (adapted from Planet Food)
Ingredients

1. Potatoes (obviously)
2. Fresh parsley
3. Butter
4. Cream or milk
5. Olive oil
6. Salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel, clean and boil the potatoes. When tender and soft, mash them into a pulp.

2. Mince the fresh parsley until really fine. Add the olive oil to the minced parsley and mix them well.

3. Heat butter and milk together until everything is nice and creamy.
   
4. Add the cream into the mashed potato and stir. Add a little salt and pepper too.
5. Finally, fold in the minced parsley. Mix well.

Sauteed Mushroom
Ingredients

1. Fresh mushrooms (obviously)
2. Olive oil
3. Mixed herbs
4. Salt and pepper

Method

1. Clean and slice mushrooms into thin slices.

2. Pan fry them in olive oil. Adjust the heat accordingly.
3. Season generously with mixed herbs, salt and pepper.

All done. I was so excited with dinner that I couldn't even keep my hands steady while taking this shot. Sorry. Dinner was great and so was Transformers. Worth watching. I have a knack for stating the obvious, don't I?

As a side note, my neighbours from China had this misguided idea that if you put a raw egg inside a glass of beer, the alcohol level would be high enough to cook it. Suffice to say, it didn't work. I had to down it... in hot chocolate instead. There was a hint of beer in the hot chocolate.