Lamb Kebabs On Minted Green Romesco With Radish Salad

Start by marinating your lamb. Crush or grate the garlic and the zest of the lemon into a bowl, along with the dried mint. Whisk in 2 tbsp of the olive oil along with a big pinch of salt. Take each of the lamb steaks and slice in half lengthways, to create two strips. Add the lamb into the bowl and toss well.

If you’re using wooden skewers, soak them in water and leave soaking until needed.

Make the green romesco. Use the open flame of the hob, or turn your grill to its highest setting. Add the green peppers, leaning them on the open flame until they start to blacken, use tongs to turn them as they char so they’re black on all sides and have collapsed, around 25 mins. Transfer to a bowl and cover with cling film or a plate. If you’re using the grill, place the peppers on a tray and slide them under the grill, turn them as they blacken on each side until they’re totally charred.

While the peppers char, make the salad. Whisk the juice of half of them lemon and remaining tbsp of olive oil with a big pinch of salt and pepper. Finely slice the radishes and add to the bowl and set aside to pickle a little.

Return to the peppers, remove the cling and taking one at a time, remove the charred skin, it should simply slide off. Open the pepper up and remove the core and seeds, then add the fleshy skin to a bender or mini chopper. Repeat with the rest of the peppers. Tip the rest of the romesco ingredients into the chopper and blitz into a smooth paste. Season generously with salt and pepper, set aside.

Take each strip of lamb and thread it onto the skewers, the trick here is to poke the skewer through the strip around 1cm from the end, then fold it back over itself to poke it through again, then repeat back over again so you’ve created an S shape. Repeat with the whole strip of lamb so you end up with the lamb woven up the skewer.

Heat a large frying pan (large enough to hold the skewers flat) over a high heat. Once searingly hot, add half of the lamb skewers. Cook for 4-5 mins on each side until charred, but still juicy and a little pink. Set aside to rest. Add the remaining lemon half, flesh-side down to the hot pan and cook for 2 mins, until its charred, remove and set aside. Take the pan off the heat.

Finish the rest of the salad by pulling the herb leaves from the stems and adding to the radishes you don’t want to chop any leaves here, toss well.

Spread the romesco across the base of a platter. Top with the charred skewers, then pile the salad into one corner. Roughly chop the reserved hazelnuts and scatter over the top. If using, sprinkle with sumac. Serve with pitas and the charred lemon half on the side for squeezing over.