My mother always served a roast for Sunday lunch, on a four week rotation. Beef, then pork, then lamb, then chicken, then back to beef again.
Roast beef was accompanied by Yorkshire puddings and horseradish sauce. Roast pork by home-made bread stuffing (bread, onion, mixed herbs, an egg and salt and pepper) and apple sauce. Roast chicken was stuffed with the same bread stuffing and roast lamb was always served with mint sauce. In addition to these traditional accompaniments, the Sunday roast also came with gravy, roast potatoes, carrots and one or two green vegetables.
On Mondays dinner would consist of leftover meat from the Sunday roast, usually cold with hot veggies. On Tuesdays my mother made a chunky soup with the bones. Sometimes, if there was enough meat left over, she would get another meal out of the Sunday roast by making shepherds pie, chicken curry or rissoles – a kind of meatball which was popular back then. On Thursdays we might have sausages with gravy and creamy mashed potatoes or Spaghetti Bolognese, a recipe my mother learnt to make while living in Malta during WWII. Friday dinners were invariably from the fish and chip shop, or occasionally from the Chinese takeaway. Or we might have Mum’s Kedgeree. Saturdays we had ham and salad, before watching the latest episode of Dr Who. Then we were back to Sunday again. There wasn’t much variety, but the food was always tasty. We didn’t eat a lot of meat, but filled up on vegetables, which we now know is a healthy approach to life.
You may remember your mother making this hearty soup with the bone from a roast leg of lamb. It comes from a postwar era when nothing was wasted. It’s very economical, making an inexpensive meal to serve at least four people. It’s simple, comfort food.
I didn’t have a meaty lamb bone so I bought four lamb forequarter chops, used two to make this soup and froze the other two to make it again in a couple of weeks. We still have another few more weeks of cold weather in Canberra, before Spring arrives.
1 cup pearl barley
1 meaty bone from a leg of lamb or two lamb chops
3-4 celery sticks
2 medium onions
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
3 or 4 carrots
2 or 3 potatoes (optional)
2 stock cubes (vegetable, chicken or beef)
2 L of water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp sugar
Chopped parsley to serve
Cover the barley with cold water and leave it to soak overnight. If you’re using lamb chops place them in a large heavy bottomed saucepan with a little olive oil so they don’t stick and cook them on both sides until they’re brown. If you’re using the bone from a leg of lamb you don’t need to do this, just put it in the pan. Peel and chop all the vegetables and add them to the pan with the water, stock cubes, drained barley and sugar. Simmer for an hour or until the barley is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Remove the chops, cut up the meat and put it back into the soup. With a lamb bone remove any meat and put it back, discarding the bone.
Serve sprinkled with parsley
Serves 4
