Two hardy annuals to serve up at home

Pasta carbonara

This classic Italian pasta dish has its origins in or near Rome. In my opinion, it should always be made with spaghetti so that the rich sauce clings to the pasta, allowing you to almost slurp it up when you’re eating it. The ratio should be three to one in favour of the spaghetti.

This may be a simple dish, but the devil is in the detail. So carefully follow the instructions on how to add the eggs to a hot pan, so that you don’t end up with scrambled egg pasta!

Ingredients, serves four

500g dried egg spaghetti

2 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, sliced

175g slab of pancetta or dry-cured bacon, diced

4 eggs

2 egg yolks

100g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Fresh nutmeg, to serve

Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Method

1. Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of boiling salted water until al dente.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a separate large pan over a low heat. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes, until golden brown, then remove the garlic with a wooden spoon. This will give your oil a lovely subtle garlic flavour, but won’t ruin the smoothness of the sauce.

3. Add the pancetta or bacon to the flavoured oil, raise the heat to medium and sauté for two to three minutes until it’s golden and translucent, but not brown around the edges.

4. Beat the eggs and egg yolks in a bowl, then stir in most of the Parmesan, reserving the rest for garnish. Season with pepper.

5. Scoop out a small mug of the pasta cooking water, then drain the spaghetti well. Tip it into the pan with the pancetta and toss to coat. Remove the pan from the heat and tip in the egg mixture, tossing the pasta quickly with a tongs. Once it has begun to thicken, add a splash of the cooking water to loosen the sauce a little.

6. Toss again and divide between warmed serving bowls. Add a light grating of nutmeg to each one, then garnish with the reserved Parmesan to serve.

Roast leg of lamb

This is my favourite way of cooking lamb - simply roasted with lots of basting to keep it juicy and succulent, then incorporating all the meat juices and crusty bits into a perfect gravy and a homemade mint sauce.

Ingredients, serves six to eight

1 x 2.25kg leg of lamb

2 onions, sliced

2 carrots, sliced on the diagonal

2 celery sticks, sliced on the diagonal

1 bulb of garlic, separated into cloves but not peeled

1 small bunch of fresh rosemary and/or thyme, plus extra to garnish

200ml white wine or water

Extra virgin rapeseed or olive oil, for cooking

Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper

For the mint sauce

15g bunch of fresh mint sprigs

1 tbsp caster sugar

4 tbsps of just-boiled water

4 tbsps white wine vinegar

Method

1. Take your lamb out of the fridge an hour before it goes into the oven. Remove all the packaging, and dry well with kitchen paper.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Pile the vegetables, garlic and herbs into the middle of a large roasting tin and drizzle with oil, then season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the lamb with oil and season with salt and pepper, then rub all over the joint.

3. Place the lamb on top of the vegetables and add the wine or water. Roast for 90 minutes for rare, pink, blushing meat, basting the lamb at least three times during cooking, as this will help to keep it juicy and succulent.

4. To check that the lamb is cooked as you like it, insert a skewer into the centre, remove it, then press the flat of the skewer against the meat: as the juice runs out, you will see to what degree it is cooked – the pinker the juice, the rarer the meat.

5. When it is cooked as you like it, transfer it to a carving board and cover loosely with a layer of tin foil and a clean tea towel. Keep it in a warm place to rest for half an hour.

6. To make the mint sauce, strip the leaves from the mint sprigs, then put them in a jug with the caster sugar and the just-boiled water. Stir to dissolve the sugar, leave to cool, then stir in the white wine vinegar.

7. To carve the lamb, wrap the tea towel around the bone so that you can get a good grip on it. Using a sharp carving knife, cut into thin slices away from you. When you get down to the bone, just rotate the leg and start carving again. Serve with the mint sauce, crispy roast potatoes, vegetables of your choice and some gravy.