Spicy Moroccanish Lamb Burgers without bread on a bed of lentils and green salad.

A shoulder of lamb cost 11.70 euros as it was 7.50 euros per kilo. I cut 800g meat from the joint. I could have cut more but roasted the rest of the meat on the bone, then made stock from the bones after removing the cooked meat. Once the bones had been boiled, all remaining pieces of meat were removed and put into the stock.

 This quantity could serve 4 to 8 people depending on appetites or greed!

Mince or grind in a blender 800g raw lamb, a little at a time.  I added:

• finely sliced red onions, garlic and fresh ginger pre-sautéed in olive oil
• a small handful of porridge oats
• salt and black pepper, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, paprika doux and piment doux ground powders,  plus dried coriander leaves, lots of dried mint leaves, lemon juice, dash of soy sauce, dash of olive oil infused with chilli
• (note you can add garam masala but I didn't have any)

I squeezed it all together with a clean hand. Then I weighed each burger to be about 100g which made 8 flat burgers but you could make them larger and fatter or smaller into meatballs, in which case I think a tomato sauce would be good.
I pan fried the burgers for  a few minutes each side. To me it didn't matter if they broke apart but mainly they did stay in one piece.  They were served in the centre of a bed of a rocket/mache/oakleaf lettuce/ fresh coriander leaves salad. I let guests add their own dollop of natural yoghurt but I didn't have any sambal oelek (chilli base) to blend with it.

In addition I made a lentil salad - sauté gently finely sliced onions, garlic and ginger with brown sugar, add drained can of lentils, cumin and coriander, nutmeg or any other such spices, add tomato puree, lemon juice and chilli infused olive oil.

This lentil dish is one of my favourites as a bed for salmon. My guests had a bread free four course menu:

• Starter of paprika anchovies on a bed of potato salad with grated parmesan and strewn rocket.
• Goats cheese was served with oatcakes.
• Dessert was apricot compôte with lavender flowers, poured over commercial meringues as I am not clever enough to make them.

They didn't want coffee or tea so I had Rooibus tea once they had all gone home!  Lovely evening with little washing up as the prep work had all been done in the morning so the evening was largely a construction jobbie!