Sometimes it’s good to stir it up a bit why not try butterflying a leg of lamb

Sometimes though it’s good to stir it up a bit…Butterflying a leg of lamb, removing the bones in the middle, is a good way of speeding up the cooking process and is a lot easier to carve. Ask your butcher to this for you. To jazz it up a bit I like to glaze it through the cooking process. Tamarind, an Asian ingredient that adds sharpness to dishes. If you’ve ever read the ingredients of an HP sauce bottle tamarind is listed and gives it that distinctive zing. It’s readily available in supermarkets or Asian shops and in the recipe here is combined with soy, honey and ginger for a sweet and sour finish for the lamb. Roast the lamb on a high heat to seal off the fat then lower the heat. Keep brushing it with the glaze until the lamb is cooked. Add any remaining glaze to the cooking juices, simmer with chicken stock and thicken with cornflour to accompany the sliced meat.

The herb pots in my garden are being to bear fruit with mint in particular coming through quite well. To accompany the lamb I’ve added a recipe for rice salad with cucumber, lime, some toasted coconut and mint. It’s a refreshing, fresh foil to the warm, unctuous meat. You could still serve the lamb with potatoes and vegetables but this makes a welcome change.

When I was growing up chocolate limes were my favourite sweets – a sour sugary shell that belied a dark chocolate centre. It’s a flavour combination I still love and that inspired the dessert recipe here. A light chocolate sponge is baked and then rolled in sugar dusted parchment before cooling. Limes are zest, juiced and whizzed into a syrup that has chocolate added and is added to whipped cream. Unwrap the sponge and fill with the lime and chocolate confection before rolling up again. Dust with icing sugar , slice and serve.

The weather forecast isn’t great for this weekend but these recipes will add a bit of zing to your Easter lunch.