Bringing variety of ideas and recipes to your table

Dunedin chef Sam Sinclair is joining the Fresh team. She will be sharing her “traditional with a twist” recipes garnered from years working in kitchens here and in London.

I grew up in Timaru, attending Timaru Girls’ High School. I always did well in hospitality and home economics classes while at school. That was probably due to starting work in kitchens as a kitchen hand at around 10 and slowly working my way up to the cold larder and prep stations before training in front of house.

I kind of feel like I was born and raised to become a chef. But it takes so much more than experience and skill to stay in this very intense, chaotic and fast-paced industry.

My journey into becoming a chef started not long after moving to Dunedin at 18. I was offered a job as a ‘‘chef de partie’’ at the new and improved Marbecks food store. It was there that they offered to get me qualified through an apprenticeship. I was lucky to get offered something like this because it wasn't really a thing that was offered to people at the time.

I knew during my apprenticeship that for me to grow and learn as much as I could about cooking, culture and history around food that I had to move abroad. As soon as I had my qualifications, I worked in as many different kitchens as I could around Dunedin (many at the same time).

I worked as much as I could not only to save for travel but to learn from as many different chefs and bakers as I could. I had set my sights on working for New Zealand chef Peter Gordon at The Providores in Marylebone High Street, London.

About six months before moving over, I messaged their Instagram page to let them know I was coming over and how much a job there would mean to me. It was a long shot, but it worked! When I arrived in London, I had 14 job interviews and trials. I had been offered a position at all 14. I held out for 24 hours in hope of hearing from the head chef at The Providores - lucky I did, because they called me up for a trial the following night.

Sam Sinclair has worked in almost every type of commercial kitchen, from fine dining to catering, bakeries to Asian fusion. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

Going into that kitchen (my dream job) was like no feeling I’ve ever felt before: so nervous, scared, proud and over-excited. I got the job! I can honestly say I have never learnt more and felt more passion for creating than I did during my time there. Working alongside some of the best chefs I’ve ever met, it was a whole other world and something I’ll never forget.

Leaving London was one of the hardest things I’ve done to date, but coming home to Dunedin and being able to share my skills and grow into who I am today is something special as well.

I have spent the past six years helping people open restaurants and cafes. I’ve worked as a consultant for people needing help managing their businesses, I have run my own catering business, Goodness Grazes, and most recently I have opened my own cafe called Gary and Lola’s in George St with business partner Katelyn Waugh.

Over the past 20 years, I have worked in almost every type of commercial kitchen, from fine dining to catering, bakeries to Asian fusion. This gives me a very broad range of recipes and ideas to bring to your table. I love traditional cooking with a twist - the twist usually being some sort of Asian fusion.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

Garlic rosemary roast lamb leg with honey roasted carrots, sauteed sesame broccolini, brown butter potatoes and mint drizzle

With the recent National Lamb Day and Easter on the way, roast lamb seemed like the perfect dish for my first recipe.

Roast lamb is a Kiwi staple, with New Zealand being renowned for our quality product.

The opportunities with roast dinners are pretty endless. You can keep it super traditional, or add a twist on your seasonal veges, sauces and sides added to your meal.

We love roast dinners in our house because they can be used in many other meals in the days after as well, leaving you with less waste from your dinners, helping you save money and think less.

In this recipe, we will be focusing on getting a perfectly cooked medium lamb leg, tender with loads of flavour. It will be paired with some of my personal favourites, looking at seasonal vegetables and side dishes with a little twist.

We have an abundance of rosemary and thyme in our home garden at the moment, so I will use these heavily for this recipe, which is perfectly fitting for roast lamb.

Lamb leg

Before roasting your leg of lamb, you need to prep it. I like to get my meat out about 30 minutes before cooking. The goal is to get your piece of meat to room temperature before going in the oven. This will help you to evenly cook it.

Going straight from the fridge to the oven will shock the meat, increase cooking time and cause the temperature to not be evenly distributed.

Salting the lamb well will help with the tenderising and add loads of flavour to the joint.

1 lamb leg
1 lemon
1 tsp cracked pepper
2 Tbsp salt (I used pink Himalayan)
6 cloves garlic
2 sprigs of rosemary
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ cup olive oil (or any oil you have on hand)

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (fan bake).

I like to pat the lamb dry and season well. I used a lemon cut in half to rub the meat. This will help with tenderising and add flavour to the joint - this is quite a Greek way of prepping lamb. I season well with a Himalayan salt. There are so many benefits to using pink Himalayan salt in your cooking, more than just for flavour. It also has a lot of health benefits too.

Once you have the leg well-seasoned, I like to cut small slits all through the top the meat. This helps when adding the garlic and rosemary to the lamb - those gorgeous aromatics will go all through the meat.

There are a few ways you can add aromatics to your lamb. For this recipe, I have blitzed the garlic, rosemary, oil and paprika together to make a rub. Alternatively, you can chop this all up to make a rub, or you can use the slits you’ve created in the meat to pop slightly chopped garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs straight in there.

The well-salted meat, mixed with the olive oil, should help you to create the perfect crust on the outside. I love a good crust on my roast, while making sure the meat inside is cooked until evenly pink and juicy. This would be somewhere between medium-rare and medium (60 to 65°C).

The general rule of thumb is 20 to 25 minutes cooking time per 500g of meat. So, I have cooked my lamb for one and a-half hours to get it to the right consistency for this recipe.

Weigh your meat and adjust the cooking time to what you need for your size of leg.

Once the meat is cooked you will want to take it out of the oven to rest for at least 15 minutes before cutting. This is going to help the juices to be reabsorbed by the meat, giving you juicier more flavourful meat.

Honey roasted carrots

1 Tbsp honey
50g unsalted butter
2 sprigs of thyme
1 tsp soy sauce
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 bunch of fresh baby carrots (washed)
Preheat oven to 180°C

Method

In a small saucepan add all of the glaze ingredients, heating and stirring until it becomes a sauce.

Take off the heat and use half the glaze and a little salt on your washed baby carrots. I prefer to roast them until they’re cooked with a little snap to them still, with no pre-boiling.

Cook the carrots in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Take them out and glaze again with the leftover glaze.

You can garnish these as you please with nuts, herbs or spices.

Because we have a lot happening with our sides, I'm going to keep these quite plain.

Brown butter potatoes

500g roasting potatoes
80g unsalted butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic (crushed)
1 sprig thyme (lightly chopped)
Salt and pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C.

For the brown butter: Melt the butter in a saucepan until it starts sticking to the bottom - it’ll start to smell fragrant and nutty. Take off heat add crushed garlic and chopped thyme, stirring well - this will help to bring out the aromatics and slightly cook them into the butter. Add a little olive oil and set aside.

Potatoes: Start by cutting your potatoes so that they are all the same in size. Rinse them in some cold water, pop them in a pot of well-salted water.

Keep them at simmering point for 10 minutes or until they are semi-cooked. Drain and cover with olive oil.

Roast at 180°C for about 30 minutes before covering them in your butter.

Roast for a further 10 minutes or until golden brown and crunchy.