Easter Feast Recipe - 3 Course Easter Lunch

Aside from Christmas, Easter is a big food celebration in our home - for me Easter marks the true start of the new year with nature awakening, weather turning for the better, and an abundance of food (both homegrown and wild) appears on our plates. Which is why I decided to theme my first 'Done For You' home menu around Easter - it felt right to launch it on what I consider the 'true' new year.

The menu is themed around lamb - of course, it would be sacrilege to have any other type of meat on the table when this gorgeous protein is celebrated on the farms and fields around us. Lamb is one of my favourite meats - cooked pink, wonderful as a roast with leftovers for sandwiches. Or slow cooked with half a bottle of red wine and all herbs like bay, rosemary, garlic... YUM. The lamb is covered in a blend of rosemary and wild garlic, with a generous pinch of sea salt and some cracked black pepper. Mix this all with some olive oil or butter, and you have your herby lamb marinade. I usually do this in the morning and leave the lamb leg to marinade for a few hours before cooking.

We all like our lamb pink in my family so I cook it accordingly - this large leg took around 1.5hrs in the oven at 180c, but this time I finished it in the BBQ to get a lovely crispy outer layer, and a light smoky flavour. I cannot recommend this enough - yes it's an extra step and a bit of faff BUT it makes a big difference to a roast (this can also be done with beef, pork, and chicken) - the flavours are incredible! We usually have leftovers, but this time my family took some home with them, and then we snacked on some lamb in the evening - there was nothing left.

Alongside the lamb, I love using seasonal veggies - carrots, potatoes, and greens like cabbage, cauliflower, asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli... I know there are classic 'roast dinner' sides and vegetables, but honestly for me the vegetables are what I find on the farmers market that week and what is in season, looking fresh, plump, and delicious. The carrots have a traditional marinade in my home - truffle honey. Truffle honey and carrots go together SO well - sweet, crunchy, with a hit of earthy truffle... sprinkle on some sea salt flakes to finish the carrots... And perhaps a pinch of cracked black pepper for a bit of spice.

The key with your veggie sides is to not overcook them - I have spent YEARS cooking my vegetables to how I have seen this traditionally done in many households and they were mostly a little bland and lacking in life. I looked at my own work and realised that it's because they're mostly overcooked, without any seasoning. So I started cooking my veggies al dente with flavours I think work well for that particular vegetable: carrots with truffle honey, broccoli with a sprinkle of feta or pine nuts, cauliflower with turmeric or wild garlic... A pinch of flavouring creates miracles and it's easy to turn vegetables into the main event - no more arguing over finishing a limp piece of brassica on your kid's plate!

As so many wild foods start sprouting around Easter, we need to celebrate nature and include them on our plates - so for the first course in this Easter feast I made a wild garlic and nettle soup with a dash of cream. This starter is perfect before a big roast dinner - it's refreshing and light, and is so quick and easy to do. Plus 90% of the ingredients are foraged and free! You can also decorate your meals with wild flowers like violets and primrose for a beautiful aesthetic presentation.

We finished the meal with a Pavlova. A classic light dessert with a seasonal twist - rhubarb was the main flavour running through this dish. I made a rhubarb puree, then decided I wanted to add some strawberries too as the flavour combo of rhubarb and strawberries is just delicious, and I got my hands on some super sweet strawberries from the market.

The main thing I would note about Pavlova is to

make your meringue the night before and leave it in the oven to cool overnight. That is how you get the meringue to be nice and stiff, with a gooey centre. Perfect.

The Easter lunch feast was demolished - but it was the perfect mix of light and heavy foods, ingredients which were oh so fresh and delicious, and some new flavours of wild foods. If you would like to make your own lamb roast (Easter themed but I would encourage this any time of the year with some seasonal substitutions!) you can download my Easter Feast menu here.

Happy cooking! x