Recipes

Nan's dinner, back where it belongs — piled on thick buttered toast

Some dinners don't need reinventing. Savoury mince kept half of Australia fed for the best part of a century — mince, onion, carrot, a good slosh of Worcestershire and a handful of peas, simmered until it makes its own gravy, then spooned over thick buttered toast. It was the after-footy-training dinner of my childhood, and it disappears just as fast today. Twenty-eight minutes, one pan, and made with grass-fed lamb it comes out richer than the beef version Nan used to make. She'd approve, I reckon.

The ocakbaşı experience, minus the plane ticket

Walk past any Turkish grill house and pirzola is what you smell: lamb chops in a garlicky, faintly smoky marinade, cooked hard over coals and served with ezme — the fiery chopped salad that's part salsa, part sauce, and entirely the reason you order more bread. None of it is complicated. The marinade is six things stirred in a bowl; the ezme is a knife, a chopping board and fifteen minutes of patience; the chops want nothing but fierce heat and a proper rest. What comes off your backyard barbecue is startlingly close to the real thing.

The casserole Nan made, and she was right all along

Somewhere in most Australian families there's a casserole dish with fifty years of dinners in it, and more often than not the dinner inside was this one. Forequarter chops, onion, carrot and stock, a squirt of tomato sauce and a splash of Worcestershire, then the oven does the rest. No tricks, no watching the pot. Two hours later the meat slips off the bone into a gravy that tastes like it took far more effort than it did. This is the forequarter chop's home ground — and the easiest good dinner in your lamb share.

Supermarket spices, restaurant result

The tandoor oven's secret isn't really the oven — it's the yoghurt. A spiced yoghurt marinade clings to the meat, tenderises it gently, and chars in patches wherever it meets fierce heat, building that smoky, lightly blackened crust you'd otherwise pay restaurant prices for. Everything in the marinade is already in your pantry or the spice aisle: garam masala, cumin, paprika, turmeric, ginger, garlic. Give the cutlets an hour in it, get the grill pan smoking, and serve them with cool cucumber yoghurt on the side. Four cutlets, two very happy people, no naan oven required.

Greece's grandest mince dish — and worth the weekend it asks for

Moussaka isn't a Tuesday dinner, and I won't pretend otherwise. It's layers, built properly: golden roasted eggplant, lamb simmered with tomato and cinnamon until thick and fragrant, and a cloud of cheese-enriched bechamel that bakes into a burnished roof. Call it two and a half hours, a fair slab of it hands-off, and the reward is a dish that cuts into proud golden squares, feeds six, and tastes even better tomorrow. The 480g pack of lamb mince in your share is exactly the right amount. Put some music on and enjoy the build.

Fat strip first, faces second, butter last — that's the whole method

There's a right order to a loin chop, and once you know it you'll never cook them any other way. Stand the chops on their fat edge first so it renders golden and crisp. Then sear the faces in that lamb fat. Then, right at the end, a knob of butter, a couple of squashed garlic cloves and a sprig of rosemary go in, and you spoon that foaming butter over until the kitchen smells like a good pub. One pan, seven ingredients, twenty-five minutes — and dinner that feels like far more effort than it was.

The big chop that was built for the backyard barbecue

There's a reason the forequarter chop has been the star of Australian backyard barbecues for generations — it's the chop with enough fat and flavour to handle real fire. A garlicky lemon-and-rosemary marinade, half an hour of soaking while you set the table, then onto a medium grill where the fat renders slowly and the edges catch and crisp. The trick is patience: this chop rewards the cook who doesn't rush it. Four chops, one bowl of marinade, and the kind of dinner that has everyone hovering around the barbecue before it's even done.

The cutlet recipe worth knowing off by heart

Every cut in the share has one recipe you should be able to cook without looking anything up. For cutlets, this is it. Rosemary, garlic and olive oil pressed onto the meat, ten quiet minutes while the pan heats, then a hard sear and a short rest. That's the entire job. The rosemary crisps against the lamb, the garlic turns sweet, and the fat edge goes golden the way it's supposed to. Four cutlets, dinner for two, twenty minutes door to plate. Learn it once and it's yours for good.

Warm pitas, spiced lamb, cool cucumber yoghurt — everyone builds their own

The fastest way I know to get kids eating dinner is to let them build it. Spiced lamb mince goes in the middle of the table with warm pita halves, cool cucumber yoghurt and a bowl of lettuce and tomato — then everyone stuffs their own pockets, and nobody complains about what's touching what. The lamb takes one pan and about twelve minutes, and the cumin and cinnamon make the kitchen smell like a good kebab shop. Twenty-two minutes all up. The table does the rest of the work.