Del-icious!: For the love of lamb and vegetables with cheese sauce

I have a very strong connection to lamb. Firstly, I am Welsh, home to many sheep and famous for this meat, (along with the various sheep connected names Welsh people have to endure). Secondly, my name is often shortened down to delamb (Delyth Ambler), as on my email account. My ebay name is lamb073 and my twitter name is deliciouslamb. So, you could say lamb is constantly with me, plus, I love it, as do most people in the UK, Europe, (especially Greece), Turkey, Cyprus, India, New Zealand, Australia and most middle Eastern countries, why doesn't this lamb love-in spill over to North America?

Trying to buy lamb here is difficult. Supermarket shelves absolutely heave with beef, chicken and pork, the lamb section usually relegated to a small corner or a tiny space squeezed between the pork ribs and topside. The choice will be a leg, (extortionately priced), a rack if you're lucky and maybe a few chops. This truly is a shame as lamb is a spectacular meat. Being sweeter than beef, I would have thought it would tick all the boxes to be well loved here. Long slow cooking renders it meltingly sweet and falling from the bone, chops sizzle on the barbecue, charring slightly and producing crispy delicious fat, soaking up any flavours thrown at them and a leg, seasoned with garlic, rosemary, mint and lemon can be eaten pink, like steak, tender and juicy.

Imagine an Indian curry, bright red and tangy sweet with a tomato and chili based sauce with heat and warmth from cumin, coriander and cinnamon, the diced lamb tender and toothsome. Or what about a kebab, the meat chewy and flavourful, marinated with mint, oregano, lemon and salt and piled in thin slices onto a soft pitta bread with herb and saffron flecked yogurt or hummus, what's not to love? Maybe it's the limited availability that stops piquing people's interest here, but, really, it should be embraced and celebrated.

In Britain, our love for lamb knows no bounds. We eat it often, whether it's the elegant Frenched rack, grilled until still pink and sliced into individual chops, maybe with some baby new potatoes, carrots and peas dressed with mint, or a few chops or a butterflied leg thrown onto the barbecue, perhaps smeared with a little curry paste from a jar mixed with some yogurt and grilled until golden brown and crispy. But, most often, it's cooked as a whole leg for a traditional dinner or lunch, to be sliced and served along with roasted potatoes, vegetables, gravy and mint sauce.

This whole leg preparation awaited Neil and I on a return trip to my parents in Wales. A whole leg, stuffed with slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary, sprinkled with a little garlic salt and roasted for 2.5 hours. The outer surface became mahogany red and crispy, while the flesh inside still succulent and moist, even though it was well done. Neil and I savoured every mouthful, occasionally looking at each other with an expression we both understood without words: we miss this.

My mum made a flavourful side dish to accompany the lamb. Usually made with only cauliflower, some sort of vegetable in a creamy cheese sauce is a very popular dish with a traditional roast dinner. For this, she experimented with both cauliflower and broccoli, blanketing the partially boiled veg with a sauce made from flour, butter and milk and large handfuls of cheese, both melted into the sauce and sprinkled on top. She was a little disappointed with the results, feeling the broccoli was not a good choice and that cauliflower alone has a meatier, nuttier texture. I really enjoyed it, however, especially the way the cheese turns to crispy molten lava on top.

Recipe : Cauliflower and broccoli baked in cheese sauce

1 head of cauliflower, broken into florets

1 head of broccoli, broken into florets

2 tbsp butter

1.5 tbsp plain flour

3/4 cup milk

a few pinches of mustard powder or 1/2 tsp mustard

salt and pepper

1 cup strongly flavoured grated cheese

First, part boil the vegetables in a large pan of boiling salted water until almost done and drain.

To make the sauce, first, melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan until melted and immediately add the flour.

Stir well until the flour and butter create a paste, reduce the heat to low and cook for a few minutes to reduce the raw flavour of the flour.

Add the milk slowly and stir well until the sauce is thick and glossy and hopefully, lump free. (This should be the case when the flour is first mixed with the butter).

Add the mustard powder or mustard and season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and add 3/4 of the cheese.

Stir well until the cheese is totally melted.

Place the cauliflower and broccoli into a baking dish and pour the cheese sauce over evenly. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese and grill (broil) under a hot grill until the cheese is golden brown and bubbly.

Some more lamb recipes (click on the image)