Food Lust People Love: Fresh Mint Sauce

Sharp and bright, this fresh mint sauce is the perfect, classic accompaniment for roasted and grilled lamb. Make it at least one hour ahead of serving to allow the ingredients time to meld together.

Food Lust People Love: Sharp and bright, this fresh mint sauce is the perfect, classic accompaniment for roasted and grilled lamb. Make it at least one hour ahead of serving to allow the ingredients time to meld together..

I know it’s not eaten as commonly in the US as it is in the UK, but lamb is becoming more readily available, at least in Houston, and that is a good thing. It’s one of our favorite animal proteins.

If you live in the States, I can highly recommend the lamb chops that Costco stocks. They are tender and usually quite thick cut so they are great on a charcoal grill. If you live in the UK, Australia or New Zealand, you are spoiled for choice of lamb cuts and sources!

We recently spent a week in Wales and were in absolute lamb-y heaven. We even managed to source hogget (lamb 1-2 years old) from a well-stocked local butcher and salt march lamb, raised in the Gower on the southern coast from the farm shop.

If your mint plants are anything like mine, they grow wild in the summer. Now is a fabulous time to make fresh mint sauce.

Fresh Mint Sauce

My sprigs of mint weighed 125g. Strip the mint leaves from the stalks. Keep the leaves and discard the stalks. This recipe is adapted from one on Fuss Free Flavors.

Ingredients

1 cup, packed, or 54g fresh mint leaves

4 teaspoons sugar

3 tbsp boiling water

3 tbsp white wine vinegar

Good pinch fine sea salt

Method

Place the mint leaves on a chopping board. Spoon the sugar on top

Rock your very sharp knife back and forth through the mint to chop it. Push it into a pile again, and chop some more.

Keep going until it is chopped very finely.

Transfer the mint and sugar mixture to a small bowl. Add the boiling water, and mix together, using a wooden spatula or spoon so you can pound the mint gently to soften it.

Add the vinegar and the pinch of salt and mix together.

Leave to stand for at least an hour to allow the flavors to meld. I tasted this immediately and thought, “Oh, no, this isn’t like the mint sauce I’m used to.” An hour later and it was much nicer than store-bought!

Serve alongside/on top of your favorite lamb roast or grilled lamb steaks or chops.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the 13th edition of the 2024 Alphabet Challenge, brought to you by the letter M. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the M recipes below: