Meat Recipes

With meat, olive oil does two separate jobs: it carries aromatics into the surface before cooking, and it finishes the dish afterwards. Do not use the same oil for both.

Lamb with rosemary, garlic and lemon

Olive oil is what gets the rosemary and garlic to stick to the meat and stay there.

You need

• Lamb chops or a butterflied leg
• Extra virgin olive oil, generously
• Rosemary, chopped
• Garlic, crushed
• Lemon zest
• Salt, black pepper

Method

Combine the oil, rosemary, garlic and lemon zest and rub it thoroughly into the meat. Leave it for at least two hours at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge — but bring it back to room temperature before it goes near heat. Salt just before cooking, not during the marinade. Grill or roast hard, rest the meat properly, and only then add the finishing drizzle of raw oil.

Use: A cooking-grade oil for the marinade; Intense, raw, at the end.

Chermoula for grilled meat

The North African herb and spice paste. Half marinade, half sauce, and it works on almost anything.

You need

• A large bunch of coriander and one of flat parsley
• Four cloves of garlic
• A teaspoon each of ground cumin and sweet paprika
• A pinch of chilli
• The juice of a lemon
• 150 ml extra virgin olive oil
• Salt

Method

Blend the herbs, garlic, spices, lemon juice and salt to a coarse paste, then pour in the oil in a slow stream with the motor running until it loosens into a spoonable sauce. Use half to coat the meat for a few hours before grilling, and keep the other half back to spoon over at the table. Do not cook the reserved half — the raw oil and fresh herbs are the point.

Use: Intense, whose pepperiness stands up to the cumin and garlic.

A word on quantity

Most recipes under-specify olive oil because the writer is being polite about fat. If the oil is good, it is the flavour, not the lubricant — measure generously and taste.