Mike van de Elzen: Barbecued lamb with avocado feta whip

Barbecued lamb with avocado feta whip 

Cook time: 12 minutes 

Prep time: 15 minutes 

Serves: 4 

4 lamb shoulder chops (about 400-500g)  

150g soft cows feta  

1 small avocado  

1 Tbsp sour cream  

2 Tbsp sunflower oil  

1 Tbsp avocado oil  

3 cloves garlic, crushed  

1 lemon  

1 x 2 pack Baby Gems (baby cos lettuces)  

½ cup fresh coriander leaves  

2 single stalks spring onion, roughly chopped  

10 chives, roughly chopped  

handful fresh fennel fronds  

½ cup mint leaves 

Drizzle the lamb chops with oil and season with salt and pepper, then squeeze over the juice of the lemon and garlic cloves. Cover and allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes. Cook on a hot BBQ for 10-12 minutes, remove from heat and allow to rest. 

Blitz the feta with the avocado and sour cream until smooth. Put in a small serving bowl and drizzle with avocado oil. Serve the lamb with the feta dip and salad.  

For the salad  

Quarter the lettuces, rinse and put in a large salad bowl with all other salad ingredients. Toss and serve. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talks 'bo.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Now our resident chief Mike Vanda.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Alison, good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I had no idea until this summer that we had
a national LAMB Day. How exciting.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I know. I've actually been hearing about it all weeks,
so it's actually had quite a bit of media.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, it's incredible history that they're celebrating eighteen eighty two.
We began exporting, didn't we isn't that?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I know that was one hundred and forty three years
ago and they loaded five thousand carcasses onto a boat
in Port Charmer's five thousand carcasses. I mentioned how long
it would take them one hundred and forty three years
ago to actually gather five thousand carcaters, the load process,
and get them into a boat and then get them
over to England. The trip alone must have been three months.

(00:57):
The sailing must have been three months, surely. Yeah, and
for them to arrive and still be in peak condition
and frozen, and.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Oh yeah, that's the thing. To be honest with you,
I was thinking, oh, I might not ask too many
details about how that, how that'll panned out, but you know,
good on them, and of course still you know, of
course today we still have a very very successful, you know,
export business of our high quality meats. And so we're
going to talk a little bit of barbecue lamb today.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
I thought i'd bring it simple, simple recipe in so
it's it's barbecue lamb because we're still we're still in
some we're still in barbco mode with an avocado fetter whip.
So the avocado fetter whip is the hero to the
dish alongside the amazing lamb. So for this dish, I'm
using lamb shoulders. But this could actually, this could be

(01:48):
any part. This could be a lamb leg. It could
be a bonus rolled lamb shoulder, It could be a
rack of lamb. It could be probably my favorite, you
know what, my favorite cut of the lambers fan the
lamb rump lamb rock. It's the perfect balance of chewingness,
of of flavor, of moisteness, and it just you cook

(02:12):
that medium which is about fifty four fifty five degrees
and then let it rest and then you slice that.
It is the most delicious cut off the lamb go
un Anyway, so today we're using lamb shoulders sake, marinate
lamb chops or lamb shoulder chops. I've just got a
little bit of oil and some salts and pepper, and
then squeeze over some lemon juice. Set that aside, let

(02:35):
that marinate for at least thirty minutes before you go
to barberca. In that time. In that thirty minutes, you
can turn your barbecue on, get it crank, and give
it a clean And then we want to make our
fetter whip. So for the fetter, I'm using I've got
cows fetter, but this could also be if you can
find some Danish fetter, it'll be great. You just want
a soft fetter, not a dry, hard fetter. Pop that

(02:56):
into a blender along with the flesh of an avocado,
a tablespoon of sour cream, turn that on, blitz it.
As it's blitzing, I pour in some avocado oil. I
don't use avocado and a lot, but I do for
this because what it does is it kind of gives
you a silky, not a lovely sheen to the actual
fetal whip. But it also introduces just a little bit

(03:17):
of color, a little bit of green color to it.
So once it's set that aside, chuck your lamb chops
onto the barbecue. Cook them, depending on thick it's going
to take ten to twelve minutes. If you can buy
a temperature prog or if you've got a tempertare probe
a digital one, stick them in you want to take
them to about fifty six fifty seven degrees, then take
them off and rest them, and then we've got a
lovely salad to go alongside it. It's like baby Cosley's,

(03:38):
which are just really little crunchy sweet baby gem leaves.
Mix up with some fresh carey and they've got like
a half a cup of cerry, and there's some spring
ends that have been chopped up, maybe some chies, maybe
some fennel. Half a cup of mint add there. Then
give that a toss together, serve that alongside your avocado
fetal whip and your barbecue lamb, and if you want,
you can add a little stars to that. Some crispy

(04:00):
potatoes will be lovely, maybe some Israeli coss course or
even just some some toasted pitter pockets that would be lovely.
It'll be great dish.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yes, sounds great. You mentioned soft cows fetter what kind
of fetter do we make a New Zealand. We make
a soft one.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, we make it Danish fetter here. Yeah, and quite
often you see those little logs these are made of.
These are French sherve goat. It's called goat sherb and
it's a little round log. Those work really well because
they basically paste down really well. Where I find you
quite a few fetters they just turned to crumble. You
can't taste them, you can't turn them into a smooth paste.

(04:37):
So I just look out for Danish feeder. That's my
go to.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Okay, I was because when you said that, I wouldn't
know whether you meant actually a Danish produced one or
one made in New Zealand. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Good, good question. I think we make I think we
make a Danish fetter here. And all it is is
just a soft cows better.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Oh, since we're celebrating our own lamb, we should be
celebrating our own you know all the other products as well,
shouldn't we.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Well, you can get a soft lamber. You can get
sheets a shot a soft sheets better as well, Yes
you can. The key is just finding one that's got
that soft element to it and it's not dry, and
it's not dry and crumby. That's for a different application.
This is something that you need to make soft and
you can turn into a nice smooth whip.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Okay, and just very quickly. The best tip for making
sure you've cooked that lamb perfectly on the barbecue temptare Probe.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Go to Bunnings or Mini ten buy yourself a digital
temperture Probe. The not expense. It will be like thirty
bucks and lamb. For a lamb rack, take it to
fifty four degrees, then take it off and rest it.
For anything a little bit tougher, like a chop or
a shoulder, take it a little bit higher, maybe fifty eight,
possibly going to sexty. Take it off, and the most
important part after that is to let it rest. Rest

(05:51):
it for the same amount of time that you've cooked it.
Don't worry if it goes a little bit cold. You
can always crank your oven up and just fire it
through a really hot oven.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just before you seven, I love it. You sound like
you're in a Cicada zoo this morning.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
I know I'm sitting I'm sitting in my old highluks
on the side of the motor we're about to go
into Woodwill Bike Park.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Thank you very much for stopping and planning your biking
trip this morning around us. Really appreciate it. That was
Mike vander Elsen.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio