With Easter upon us it’s time to celebrate and entertain once again. Jo Caruana meets three chefs and asks each of them to share their favourite Easter recipes.

For sisters Ramona and Roberta Preca cooking runs in the family and they have grown up completely surrounded by food (Ramona runs new restaurant Palazzo Preca in Valletta, while also running the Preca Sisters’ Kitchen along with Roberta).

“We chose the lamb recipe because it is a meat that is especially popular during the Easter period,” explains Ramona. “It also reminds us of when we were little and our grandmother used to cook it for us, followed by her famous homemade ice-cream topped with fresh strawberry sauce. The panna cotta below reminds us of it a little, too.”

Roberta’s Strawberry Panna Cotta

Photos: Chris Sant Fournier

• 250ml cream
• 250ml fresh strawberry puree
• 2.5 envelopes of unflavoured gelatine
• 90ml cream (warmed slightly)
• 90g white sugar
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Pour the 90ml cream into a saucepan and stir in the gelatine leaves and sugar over a medium heat. Watch carefully as the milk will rise quickly to the top of the pan. Mix in the other cream until completely dissolved and cook for one minute, stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Then, stir in the vanilla essence and strawberry puree until well mixed; then pour into six pretty, individual glasses. When cool, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least four hours (preferably overnight) before serving.

Ramona’s Roast Lamb

• 1.8kg leg of New Zealand lamb
• ¼ cup olive oil
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
• 6 washed potatoes, peeled and sliced
• 4 onions peeled and cut into large chunks
• Pinch of salt
• 1 litre chicken stock
• Fresh rosemary
• 3tbl spoon Irish butter (salted)

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Place the lamb in a large roasting pan and brush it all over with a little of the oil. Season well with pepper. If you are using the garlic, make 1cm-deep slits with a small, sharp knife into the leg of lamb, and press a piece of garlic and rosemary into each slit with your fingers. Roast the lamb in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180°C.

Meanwhile, place the potatoes into a backing dish, season with salt and pepper, and add the stock along with the onions. Arrange the potatoes around the lamb and cook for 30 minutes.

Then continue cooking the lamb for a further 40 minutes (for medium-cooked lamb). Transfer the lamb to a carving plate, cover loosely with foil and set aside to rest. Carve the lamb and serve with the potatoes, onions and gravy.

Stephan’s Female Barbary Duck Breast

Chef Stephan Tabone is renowned for his cooking at Gozo eatery La Stanza, which is set in a converted military construction built by the Knights. Here he provides an alternative main for Easter lunch – duck. “This recipe is something different, but it’s just as tasty and always goes down a treat. I love to cook it as it reminds me of my early days a chef,” he says.

Served with a physalis sauce on wilted greens (serves 6)

• 3tbsp Szechwan peppercorns
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 duck breasts with skin, about 175g
• 300ml sugar syrup
• 150g physalis
• 150ml dry red wine
• 150ml brown chicken stock
• 3tbsp gooseberry conserve or honey
• Few knobs of butter
• 400g spring greens, cored and finely shredded

Toast the peppercorns in a dry pan until fragrant, then tip into a pestle and mortar and add a little salt and pepper. Lightly crush the peppercorn mix. Score the skin of the duck breasts in a criss-cross pattern, then coat with the spice mixture.

Place the duck breasts, skin side down, in a dry ovenproof pan and cook over a very low heat to render down most of the fat. This may take 10 to 15 minutes. Heat the oven to 200⁰C. Heat the sugar syrup in a pan, meanwhile. Add the physalis and gently poach for two to three minutes. Leave them to cool in the sugar syrup.

For the sauce, boil the red wine in a pan for seven to eight minutes until reduced by half. Pour in the stock and again, reduce by half. Turn up the heat under the duck breasts and fry until the skin is crisp.

Turn them over and seal the other side for one to two minutes. Transfer the pan to the hot oven and cook for eight to 10 minutes for medium-rare duck – it should be slightly springy when pressed.

In the meantime, stir the gooseberry conserve into the sauce and add a knob of butter for shine. Drain the gooseberries, add them to the sauce and warm through. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

When ready, rest the duck on a warm plate for 10 minutes. Wilt the spring greens with a couple of knobs of butter in a hot pan. Season well, then divide among warm serving plates. Thickly slice duck breasts on the diagonal and fan out on top of the spring greens. Spoon the sauce over and around to serve.