A taste of south America.

Peru and Japanese cooking?

This is another Olive recipe, which I cooked for my family when I was home. I got a bit flustered at the end as there was quite a lot to do but it was worth the effort. It is a South American themed meal of Chilli Cumin lamb skewers, Biro Biro rice and sweet potato fries.

For the lamb skewers, which has a Japanese influence with Mirin and rice vinegar, as apparently there is a large Japanese population in Brazil and Peru.

600g lamb neck fillet, cut into chunks- although dad got more than this because he loves meat and it still wasn’t enough.

Marinade

3 tsp cumin seeds

1 red chilli

250ml olive oil

4 cloves garlic

3 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp rice vinegar (both of these are found in the world food section)

1 tsp oregano

2 tsp salt

Then toast the cumin seeds in a dry pan then add the chilli, garlic and half the olive oil. Heat gently for 5 minutes. It says to tip into a blender, but I didn’t have one so I just then mixed in the other marinade ingredients. I marinated the lamb all day.

Then in the evening I put it onto skewers and cooked under a hot grill for about 15 minutes until brown.  

The prep of the onions!

Then onto the biro biro rice:

400g basmati rice

4 tbsp olive oil

1 diced red onion

4 chopped spring onions

Shallots:

Oil for deep frying

2 small shallots

50g plain flour

200ml milk

Cut the shallots in half and then slice. Dip them in the flour, then the milk, and flour again- it’s a bit messy. Then fry in deep oil until browned.

Cook the rice. Then heat the oil and soften the red onion before adding the rice, spring onions and dried parsley. Check seasoning then put in a bowl and put the shallots on top.

Then for the sweet potato fries all you need is two large sweet potatoes, oil and paprika and sea salt.

Cut the sweet potatoes into thin fries and put in iced water for 15 minutes. Put the oven to 180C, fan 160C/ gas 4.

The finished product on super retro plates

Put the sweet potato chips on a baking tray and cover in oil. I cooked them for about an hour but this was too long. I think 45 minutes would be ok. Once cooked sprinkle with sea salt and paprika and serve with the rice and lamb skewers.