Leiths week 6 - pistachio crusted rack of lamb, boulangere potatoes & a chocolate fondant

This week was my last week at Leiths cookery school (sob) and most probably the most challenging week of the whole course. We were presented with a rack of lamb, complete with chine bone and shown how to remove the fat, the rubbery piece of tendon called the paddywack (no joke, this is actually what it's called - amazing) and how to scrape the bones clean. A pretty gruesome job... but it was Halloween so it seemed apt.

Once clean, naked and beautiful, the lamb was coated with a crust of ground pistachios, butter and thyme (very liberal amounts of butter were used in my case) and left to set in the fridge. In the meantime we made boulangere potatoes - thinly sliced potato and onion, layered covered in white stock (made from chicken and veal bones) and yet more butter and cooked for 2 hours. The recipe (in the Leiths Bible) stated to cook the lamb for half an hour... this seemed excessive so mine was cooked for 15 minutes and was still very pink inside (I do like it practically bleating...)

The final dessert of my Leiths adventure was a classic chocolate fondant. Really simple to make, these little chocolate pots of amazingness cannot fail to impress. Sadly I got melted chocolate (and butter) all over my recipe in the class and hoped it would be in my Leiths technique bible at home so I could share it with you... sadly it's not - I will try to be less messy in future...

The melt-in-the-middle chocolate fondants were served, warm from the oven, with a raspberry coulis (with added zing from the zest and juice of a lime) and obligatory cream

Raspberry and honeysuckle chocolate cups

Chocolate cups filled with honeysuckle scented cream and crushed raspberries... I saw these golden raspberries on my way home yesterday and just couldn't resist them. I used honeysuckle syrup in my filling which I found on Wild England's stall at Jimmy's Harvest festival.

I think the raspberry probably overpowered the delicate honeysuckle flavour somewhat so I'm going to attempt honeysuckle macaroons soon instead... watch this space!

Rose and raspberry sorbet

We seem to be having an Indian summer at the moment and, with the warm weather apparently set to continue until the weekend, I thought I could get away with a quick sorbet test before the Winter truly sets in...

This crimson pink ice uses fresh raspberries which, combined with the essence of rosewater, results in a lovely light fruity and flowery concoction. It's also really easy to make, which is an added bonus.

Recipe follows below...

For the sorbet syrup:
30g liquid glucose
100g white sugar
175ml water 

For the sorbet:
500g raspberries (frozen is fine)
2 tbsp rose water
200g sorbet syrup
Juice of 1 large lemon 

To make the sorbet syrup, add the liquid glucose, sugar and water to a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes then leave to cool. 

To make the sorbet, simply add the raspberries and sorbet syrup to a pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. Retain 1 dessert spoon of the seeds and add back to the sorbet mix. Add the juice of the lemon and the rose water, put into a large freezer-proof box and put into the freezer (or into an ice cream maker if you have one). 

If you don't have an ice cream maker, take the sorbet out for 5 minutes before serving to soften.