I don’t know why it is, but the older I get, the quicker time flies by. It seems only yesterday that I was packing up the Christmas decorations and here we are at Easter, with the clocks going forward to summertime. It’s been a windy old winter and I shall be glad to get rid of the winter woollies, and hopefully spring will soon be sprung!
Easter food is all about lamb, hot cross buns, simnel cake and chocolate – at least it is to me. Lamb is traditional Easter fare, with a roasted leg probably being favourite.
Every year I roast a leg of lamb, but this year I thought I’d have a change, so I bought a pack of two eight-rib racks of New Zealand lamb from the freezer shop.
They were already ‘frenched’, i.e. with the backbone removed and the rib bones scraped clean, but if you’re very lucky, your butcher might have fresh racks, in which case you can ask him to french them for you if you give him notice.
I took off what fat there was (which wasn’t much), pressed on a thin minty garlic and breadcrumb crust, then roasted them. The meat was sweet, juicy, tender and delicious, and I served them divided into chops with some oniony lyonnaise potatoes.
If you fancy fish instead of meat, salmon is always a good choice. There is plenty available and a whole poached salmon makes a spectacular dish for a large gathering. But for a smaller party, fillets of salmon wrapped in Parma ham are easy, tasty and look good, served with a purée of broad beans. Popping the beans out of their tough outer skins takes a bit of time, but once that’s done, the purée can be whizzed up in seconds.
Mother’s Day in England (or Mothering Sunday, to give it its proper title) is always celebrated on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Originally, it was the day when you made a pilgrimage to your mother church, but gradually it became the Sunday when young domestic servants and apprentices were permitted to return home to visit their parents.
As it was also a day when the Lenten fast was relaxed, simnel cakes were baked to take home as gifts. Although Mothers’ Day is still celebrated on that Sunday, the cakes are now usually baked for Easter.
Simnel cakes traditionally have a layer of marzipan baked in the middle of them and are topped and decorated with more marzipan, but as it’s only a few weeks since we finished the Christmas cake and I’ve had my fill of rich fruit cakes for the time being, I made simnel muffins instead. They still have marzipan in them, and on them, and they do make a nice teatime treat.
And finally some chocolate, but this time it’s a mousse made with dark chocolate and a touch of liqueur. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how good it is – or that you don’t have to keep it just for Easter!