My wife adores roast lamb with mint sauce. However, after an online purchasing blunder, my larder now contains six jars. How can I make use of them apart from serving roast lamb every Sunday from now until the crack of doom?
John, by email
As is so often the case, it all starts with a shift in mindset. “When you see a jar of sauce, there’s a real tendency to think, ‘I must use this as a sauce,’” says Kate Young, author of Dinner at Mine? Start treating that surplus mint sauce as an ingredient instead, however, and your life will be a whole lot easier. “If John is planning on using chopped fresh mint with, say, meat, cheese or veg, then consider how you might use mint sauce in its place,” Young adds. Case in point: pea and mint soup, says Sally Abé of the recently opened Teal by Sally Abé in east London. “Stir in the mint sauce at the end of the cooking, then blitz with the peas.”
Obvious, maybe, but it’s also worth pointing out that mint sauce has a decent shelf life, so John can be nice and relaxed in how he chooses to use the fruits of his shopping blunder. That said, sausage rolls are always a good idea, especially if you’re feeding a gang over Easter. Young says: “Put some finely chopped onion through lamb mince, then add big spoonfuls of the sauce.” Fry a bit of the mix before nestling it in pastry, mind: “You want to be sure the mint is really coming through.” (Likewise, any lamb meatball will be greatly improved by the addition of the green stuff.)
