Luke Mangan's Spring Lamb Loin with Peas, Fetta and Pine Nuts

For my birthday I received Luke Mangan's new cookbook - 'At home and in the mood.' It's full of so many fabulous recipes and I've pretty much dog-eared the whole book!

Tonight I came home and wanted to cook something a bit more special, but still relatively easy. This dish looked like it would fit the bill...

Spring Lamb Loin with Peas, Fetta and Pine Nuts

6 X 150g lamb loins, trimmed

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cups fresh or frozen peas

4 tbsp fetta cheese

30g pine nuts, toasted

good handful of mint leaves, chopped

1 lemon

sea salt and cracked black pepper

Season the lamb loin and drizzle over some olive oil.

Heat a BBQ grill or frypan to a high heat and cook the lamb loins 1 minute on each side. The meat should not be overcooked, but pink in the middle. Leave to rest.

Cook the peas in salted boiling water until tender. Drain and crush with a fork. Add the fetta and crush further to combine. Add the toasted pine nuts and mint, a squeeze of lemon and a good splash of olive oil and pepper.

Spoon the crushed peas among individual serving plates. Slice lamb loin into about 5-6 slices and arrange on top of the crushed peas. Spoon more crushed peas and mint on top. Drizzle with a little more extra virgin olive oil and serve.

The ingredients for this recipe were fairly easy to source. Most of them I had already, other than the mint and the fetta. I decided to use Dodoni fetta, which is a Greek fetta and incredibly creamy. It contrasted really well with the crushed peas.

I also still had an abundance of lemons from my mother in law's now defunct lemon tree!

I cooked the lamb for a minute on each side as Luke suggested, however, it was still incredibly rare. I love my meat medium rare and still pink, but this was a wee bit too raw for me! I put the lamb back in, but unfortunately it ended up quite tough in areas when I came to serve it. I think the lamb loin may've been a bit thicker in some parts than others.

I also used frozen peas because to be honest, who wants to shell peas when they're hungry and wanting to eat quickly!

When arranged on the plate, this dish looked quite beautiful with the brilliant green of the peas. I served it with plain buttered couscous, which, when combined with the pea mixture, was a really yummy mix.

I thought this dish was very tasty, however, perhaps a tad dry. It really needed some yoghurt with it or something to add a little bit of juice. Brett wolfed it down, so it must have impressed the husband... I would make it again, but with yoghurt as mentioned.