Roast Lamb with Ruby Salad and Tabbouleh

I’ve made a post about French style roast lamb before but this is my summer roasted lamb and accompaniments. If I had a barbecue, the lamb would probably be barbecued instead of roasted but alas I’ll have be content with my oven.

I was having a discussion the other about why deli counters serve sliced roast beef, roast ham, roast turkey and roast chicken at the counters, but there’s never any roast lamb or other type of lamb products. I know it’s a fatty meat and not many people like it because of this, but pork also has a high fat content and yet there are endless cylinders of pork based sausages at the deli counter. Lamb is consumed by a lot of people around the world, unlike beef and pork it is not frowned upon in religious beliefs, so why is it missing at the deli counter?

So here’s my attempt at a warm thinly sliced lamb summer dish. Spiced lamb cut thinly and served with classic tabbouleh, and my favourite ruby salad. I love beetroot. I don’t care that it turns everything it touches pink and completely destroys my white shirts. Beetroot is a vegetable of Gods! Now that it is in season I am going to go searching at the farmer’s markets for golden beetroot... delicious!

My ruby salad is simple, radishes, cooked beets, pomegranate to provide acidity in the dressing and feta cheese for the salty creaminess. The beets provide the earthy flavour, the radishes provide the crunch and when you shake it all together it looks one dimensional, but in your mouth it’s a taste sensation in pink and red. And you know it goes surprisingly well with lamb, subtly so the lamb retains its sweet flavours. Perfect for the summer :)

Ingredients
2 Beetroot, boiled until tender, skinned then sliced
7 Radishes, washed, trimmed and sliced
1 Pomegranate, pods removed
50g Feta cheese, crumbled
Olive Oil
¼ cup Bulgar wheat, cooked
Large handful of Parsley, finely chopped
2 Tomatoes
1 small red Onion
½ Lemon, juice only
Salt & Pepper
About 200g of cooked lamb

Recipe
For the tabbouleh, chop tomatoes, onions, fresh parsley and mint until fine. Prepare bulgar wheat to packet instructions and mix together. The dressing is made with olive oil, half a lemon and salt and pepper. Mix well with a spoon .

For the ruby salad, mix beets, radish, pomegranate, and feta together with a dressing made with reserved pomegranate liquid, salt and a small amount of olive oil.

Thinly slice cooked lamb. I used a whole piece of lamb fillet, which I spiced and roasted flat in the oven as opposed to stuffing and rolling it. This resulted in a quicker cooking time suitable for barbecuing, while it renders the fat on the outside leaving the middle pinkish. I also find it easier to cut this way.

Arrange salads in bowls and sliced lamb on a platter and let people help themselves.