Anglo-Asian Lamb Salad

This recipe had me troubled from the start. I've literally spent the entire week fretting about this one. Not because I thought it would be hard to make but because of that 4 letter word L-A-M-B. If you want to know how I feel about eating lamb please watch this clip and skip to the 4 minute mark.

http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v956076185f

Lisa Simpson's thoughts are a window into my own thought process. Husband's feelings on this subject are displayed by Bart Simpson. So after days and days of inner turmoil I concluded that I would make the salad for husband with beef and for myself meatless. Because I'm not so hot on eating beef either - but that is a tale for another time (involving childhood memories and what likely should have been a few trips to the therapist).
So finally I find myself in the grocery store - Longo's this time as Metro has come up 0 for 2 so far. My grocery list includes the beef for husband, red currant jelly, chili pepper, mint, green onion and garlic oil. The green onion, mint and chili pepper were a snap. But the garlic oil I could not find. No matter I'll skip to the jelly and come back to that I console myself. I DO NOT want to phone a friend this time. This shop will be all me. So I find the jelly section. Longos has TONS of jellies. And so many gourmet ones too - Obviously it will be here I'm thinking. So I'm looking and looking - and looking and looking. And STILL looking. There is no mother-effing red currant jelly in this godforsaken store. They have every kind of jelly you could dream of BUT red currant jelly. As a matter of fact they even have Black Currant Jelly. Now I know what you're thinking - that's a no brainer MrsK just get the Black Currant Jelly. But this decision is not so easy to make when you're the one whose dinner is on the line. And you just fed your husband that mess called Smoked Cod and Cannellini a few days ago. If Black Currant Jellies have a complete different flavour then reds I could totally eff up the whole damned thing. Just look at what happened with my NON Smoked Cod...Do you see where I'm coming from now? So I pocket my pride and phone a friend.

SIS: Hello?
ME: What kind of jelly can I use in place of red currant jelly?
SIS:[laughing] stop shopping at Metro.
ME: I'm at Longo's!!!
SIS: And they don't have red currant jelly?
ME: NO! Can I use Black Currant Jelly? They have that.
SIS: For the Lamb Salad?
ME: Yes.
SIS: Yeah that will be fine

So I go with the Black Currant Jelly and after some hurried instructions regarding garlic oil I [or rather we] decide that just using garlic and olive oil is fine. All I have left to do is pick up some beef for the man. While I'm perusing the different pieces of beef I look to my side and there's a freaking cow tongue in my face! It's hard for me not to vomit when I see this and all I can think about in the Longos meat section surrounded by tongues and pigs feet and various other body parts is aliens coming to earth, thinking we humans are quite tasty and I then in my mind replace the human grocery shoppers with Alien grocery shoppers and the animal tongues with human tongues and so on and so forth and you can now see why I always get SO freaked out by the Longo's meat section. So anyhow I start getting nervous and maybe a little panic-y inside so I grab a piece of beef that resembles no body part and has no bones and bolt out of there.

Back home I start cooking right away. The Anglo-Asian Lamb [or in this case Beef] Salad comes together very fast. Nigella Express indeed. I was longer in the grocery store than I was making dinner. I did try the salad with the beef for the sake of critiquing and it's really good the way the beef balances the tanginess and spiciness of the dressing. If you want to eat this meatless though I would suggest replacing the meat with a strong Goat's Cheese. And also if you go meatless I would reduce the amount of fish oil in the dressing. You didn't notice it with the beef but no meat and the flavour of the fish oil becomes a bit to powerful. I would say reduce the fish oil by almost half for the veggie version.

All in all I'd call this recipe a success - it was fast and husband liked it. But it's quickly becoming apparent that I either need to find a British grocer or trips to the merto/longos are not going to be quick. Hopefully my sister doesn't block my number!


Just one ammendment to this post - be sure you wash your hands after making this dish and wash them well. Especially if you wear contacts! Sticking your finger in your eye to remove your contacts with trace ammounts of red hot chili pepper oil on your fingers is not such a good feeling. Even if it is 2 hours after you were cooking!!!!