Holiday Recipe: Sipi’s Oven Roast Lamb Chops with Lemon and Oregano

Author Tessa Kiros’s new cookbook, Now and Then A Collection of Recipes for Always (Murdoch Books) is a curated collection of 150 new recipes that warm the heart and kitchen, and which includes Tessa’s personal reflections and favorite food memories.  It also includes several ideas and combinations for delicious holiday dishes, such as:

• Warm Malva Pudding Cake with Whisky Sauce
• Raspberry Creme Brulee
• Gingerbread
• Ricotta and Jam Pastries
• Chocolate Cake, Sour Cherries and Clotted Cream
• Sugar Lemon Tart
• Kourabiedes With Pecans And Chocolate Chips
• Pistachio Biscuits With Figs, Raspberries And Rose Syrup

One tasty recipe that Tessa Kiros shares with us here is for Sipi’s Oven Roast Lamb Chops with Lemon and Oregano.

Sipi’s oven roast lamb chops with lemon and oregano

Says Tessa: “These are the ones my mom always made in the oven at home – a big trayful. I loved scraping the bottom of the dish with chips!

I get the butcher to cut the lamb chops thin and I leave some fat on the chops as it’s meltingly delicious when roasted with the lemon. They must be served warm and, if it is cold outside, serve on heated plates. Lovely with Boereboontjies (page 29) or chips.”

Serves 4

• 1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) thin cut lamb chops, just under 1 cm (½ in) thick max (15–20 chops) with some fat
  juice of 2 lemons (about 8 tablespoons)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 30 g (1 oz) butter, cut into small chunks
• 3 heaped teaspoons dried
• Greek oregano, plus a little extra to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Quickly rinse or wipe the lamb chops over with moist paper towels to get rid of any stray bits of bone. Pat dry. Put into a large roasting dish where they fit in a single layer.

Splash with the lemon, season well with salt and pepper and add the olive oil. Scatter the pieces of butter around and sprinkle the oregano over, crushing it a bit between your fingers. Turn through to coat both sides of the chops.

Pour 125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) water around the sides of the dish. Cover the dish with foil and bake for about 20 minutes until pale but cooked, with a good amount of sauce.

Remove the foil, lower the oven to 180°C (350°F) and return the dish to the oven for another 20 minutes or until the chops have a good deep golden colour and the sauce has thickened and is bubbling and sticky in parts (there’s no need to turn the chops over and, depending on your oven, you can turn it to Fan to get the chops more golden if you like). Serve hot with a little extra oregano scattered over.

 

ABOUT TESSA KIROS

Tessa Kiros is international cookbook royalty. She helped define the modern illustrated genre and has sold more than 700,000 copies across multiple titles, languages, and decades. Her previous cookbooks include Apples for Jam, Falling Cloudberries, Provence to Pondicherry, Twelve, Food From Many Greek Kitchens, Limoncello and Linen Water, and Piri Piri Starfish. Tessa’s upbringing and lifelong wanderlust has seen her collect culinary experiences from all over the world. Born in London to a Finnish mother and Greek-Cypriot father, she grew up in South Africa. After many years traveling and working, she settled with her husband Giovanni in Italy, where they raised daughters Yasmine and Cassia. She divides her time today between Italy and Greece. Now & Then is her eleventh cookbook and it’s her definitive new work: 150-plus recipes with gorgeous lifestyle photography reflecting on the food that has shaped her, but also encompassing her table today. Her new cookbook taps into our renewed appetite for nostalgia, in cooking and in life. It calls out to Tessa Kiros devotees, as well as speaking to younger readers through the mediums of color, energy, authority, and the healthful deliciousness of her evolving modern table. This is Tessa Kiros as we haven’t known her; for 2023 and beyond.

Now and Then A Collection of Recipes for Always

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Murdoch Books (October 3, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages