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Sacrificial lamb rack (with sweet potato mash and jus) – recipe
This recipe is so crazy tasty you’ll think you died and went to hell/heaven. I wanted to create a dish that gave off a death metal energy while tasting like something you’d eat at a flash restaurant. Jules and I filmed an episode featuring this recipe in the middle of Sydney’s lockdown. We went all-out and green-screened the whole kitchen to make it look as though it was set in a fiery pit of doom. It was one of the biggest efforts I’d ever made for a video, and it took me the better part of two weeks to edit the fucken thing too. Entirely worth it and, unlike the video production, the dish is as easy as all get-out.
Serves 2
Prep 30 mins
Cook 30 mins
1–1.2 kg lamb rack
4 long red chillies
2 tbsp olive oil
Parsley to serve
For the sweet potato mash
2 medium sweet potatoes (approx 800g)
1 whole bulb garlic, unpeeled
Olive oil, for drizzling
20g butter
Salt and pepper
Splash of cream or full-cream milk
For the jus
3–4 French shallots or 1 red onion
4–6 garlic cloves, peeled and finely diced
30g butter
150ml red wine
150ml beef stock
1 tbsp brown sugar
Straight out of hell’s gate, you’re gonna need to summon the heat in the oven to a brutal 220C/200C fan.
Wash any dirt off your sweet potatoes, then dry them. Prick a bunch of holes in them with a fork, but don’t fucken stab yourself, please! Wrap in foil and then drop-kick them into the oven for 45 minutes to one hour. You’ll know when they’re done ’cause you should be able to easily stick a pitchfork or small trident through them.
Cut the top (not the furry bum end) off the whole bulb of unpeeled and intact garlic, drizzle a little olive oil into it and wrap in foil. Place your red chillies on a non-stick baking tray along with your foil-covered garlic and bung them in the oven with the sweet potatoes. They should all be cooked around or just before the sweet potatoes (35 to 45 minutes).
Now to deal with the lamb. A lamb rack commonly comes with a lot of fat on it. If you’re not bothered by it then leave that shit on. If you are like me and want it to look flash as a rat with a gold tooth, then you can gently and slowly pull the fat off the meat. If you decide to use a knife, be careful not to cut the meat off with the fat.
If you wanna turn this shit up to 11 on the fancy-pantometer, you can employ the brutal technique of frenching the bones, AKA cleaning/scraping the bones with a knife to remove all fat and excess meat and only leaving the eye of the cutlet on the now-exposed bone. I’ll be honest, this process is a bit of fucking around and not entirely necessary but it does look cool.
To prep the jus ingredients, peel and chop/slice your shallots/red onion along with your garlic cloves, and chuck in a bowl of their own.
On the stove, get yourself a wide pan, bung in a dash of olive oil and get it nice and hot. Carefully and quickly sear the lamb rack on all sides, about 45 to 60 seconds each side. Transfer to an oven dish and throw it in the Pit of Doom with the sweet potatoes, chillies and garlic for about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on how you like your meat cooked. Don’t act tough, use a meat thermometer and spike it in the middle to check: 55C for rare, 55-60C for medium rare, 60-65C for medium, 65C for medium-well done, and 65C+ is pretty much gonna make it the inner tube out of a BMX, but I get if seeing pink in the meat freaks you out, so by all means cook past that temp at your hellish leisure.
Using the same pan you just seared your lamb in, turn the heat down to medium-high and melt 30g butter, then drop in the chopped shallots/onion and garlic and saute for a few minutes until they soften and begin to turn brown. Add the red potion (wine) to the pan, being careful it doesn’t catch the lip of the pan and catch fire (unlike me, who intentionally did it on camera to look cool), and cook for two to three minutes.
Pour in your beef stock and brown sugar and simmer gently for seven to 10 minutes until the liquid has reduced by about half. Then strain the whole lot through a sieve into a bowl to separate the liquid from the onion and garlic. Make sure to give these lumpy bits a good fucken push through the sieve to get all the good flavours into that bowl. Then, would you believe it, we chuck the liquid part BACK in the pan and cook it down even more until it’s thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. The consistency should be thinner than honey but thicker than wine.
If we have timed it right, out of the oven should come everything (unless something looks or feels like it needs longer, in which case leave it in for a sec).
Rest the lamb in a warm place. You can cover it with foil if you like or don’t have anywhere you consider that warm.
Carefully peel the skins off the chillies to keep them whole. Set aside.
Unwrap the foil from the sweet potatoes and scrape out the orange flesh into a bowl.
Remove the foil from the garlic bulb and squeeze the cooked garlic cloves into the sweet potato flesh with 20g butter, a dash of cream or milk and a crack of salt and pepper.
Whisk together with a masher or, even better, with a whisk! Give that mash potato some love until there are few to no lumps. Add more salt and pepper if ya want, and if it’s too thick add more milk (but slowly or it will turn to soup).
Now for the death metal part: make it look like horns!
On a plate, blob on a few spoonfuls of the mash in the centre, then with a sharp knife separate the cutlets by cutting between the bones (I like to keep them as two bones to each serving) and place the bones crisscrossed and back-to-back on top of the mash. Or just plonk the fucken things on it.
Gently lie two red chillies in front of the lamb in a cross and drizzle the meat with a teaspoon or so of jus. Finish with a pinch of chopped parsley if ya like, and marvel at that shit-hot looking sacrifice you just made for dinner.
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Zero fucks mac’n’cheese – recipe
![Close-up of a spoonful of macaroni cheese lifting from a baking tray of macaroni cheese](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/668f5d4cd78daf710af95a6eb0d0611bac4e25f8/0_0_4550_6823/master/4550.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none)
Food like this is so ridiculous – true food debauchery with an almost total disregard for healthy eating, but also tastes pretty amazing.
Also, being “healthy” can mean a lot of things; joy is healthy too, just saying.
Serves 4–6
Cook: 1–1.5 hours
500g macaroni (or any other short pasta)
3–4 tbsp butter, plus more for greasing
150g cheddar cheese
150 g mozzarella
1 brown onion, peeled
3-4 garlic cloves, finely diced
1 litre full-cream milk
2 tbsp plain flour
100g shaved parmesan
2 heaped tbsp mustard powder or dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
1 tsp paprika (optional)
⅓-1 cup panko breadcrumbs
Pinch chopped parsley
½ tsp dried thyme
Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan.
Boil some water in a large pot on the stove, bang in some salt and cook your pasta to the halfway point. Drain, return to the pan and stir through a tablespoon of butter and set aside.
Grate the cheddar and mozzarella into separate bowls.
As finely as you can be bothered, slice the onion and bung in a bowl, followed by your garlic.
Pour the milk into a small pot and gently warm it up (do not boil) on the stove.
Punt your health kick over the back fence and, in another pan over medium heat, melt two to three tablespoons of butter. Into this pan go the onion and garlic. Cook them slowly until they have softened but not browned (about five minutes).
Add your flour to the onions and garlic, stir and cook into a paste for a minute or two. Then, a cup at a time, start adding your warm milk to the mixture and stir till thickened, and repeat until all the milk is in. Now it’s time to really turn the health down to zero by adding in all the cheeses (but save a handful of parmesan for later).
Stir through your mustard powder or mustard with a good crack of salt and pepper to taste.
Add to the pan your half-cooked pasta and stir together.
Tip into a greased-up 35 x 24cm ovenproof dish and why not put some MORE FUCKEN CHEESE ON TOP!! (The remaining parmesan.) Sprinkle some paprika over it all, if using.
Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden on top.
Back to the stove with one more pan on a medium heat with one more tablespoon of butter until it melts. In with the panko crumbs, parsley and thyme with another crack of salt. Once the breadcrumbs have turned golden brown, turn the heat off and allow it rest.
Remove the dish from the oven and allow to cool. And because being mega today just wasn’t mega enough, sprinkle the butter-fried breadcrumb mixture evenly over this marvel of cholesterol. Let it rest for a few minutes, then serve.
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This is an edited extract from Smash Hits Recipes, a graphic novel cookbook by Nat’s What I Reckon, illustrations by Bunkwaa, Glenno, Warrick McMiles and Onnie O’Leary. Available on 14 November through Penguin (RRP $49.99)
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