Summer Pomegranate and Pea Quinoa Salad with Marinated Lamb

 

This recipe has been adapted from Meghan Telpner's Qristmas Quinoa recipe.

Ingredients  

Serves 2 people 

Lamb & Marinade - Made by my fiance

400g of lamb fillet (200g per person)

Handful of Parsley and Mint.

Couple of sprigs of Rosemary

2 Garlic Cloves

2-3tbsp of Olive Oil

1 tsp of Chilli Flakes

Salt 

Quinoa Salad

1 cup Quinoa (soaked for 15mins and rinsed)

1 Pomegranate

1 cup of fresh or frozen Peas

Salt to taste 

Tomato & Cumber Salad

1 Tomato & 1 Cucumber diced 

Dressing
Another handful of Parsley and Mint
1 Garlic Clove
2 tbsp Olive Oil
Half a lemon juiced
1 tsp Pomegranate Molasses

Method
About 1-2 hours before you prepare the salad place all the herbs, garlic, olive oil, salt and chilli into a blender and combine well to make the marinade. Place the meat in a zip-lock plastic bag or container and add the marinade and massage into the meat. Put this in the fridge until about 20 mins prior to cooking so that the meat can be closer to room temperature before cooking.

For the Quinoa salad, cook the grains by covering with 2 cups of water and bring to the boil then reduce down to a medium heat and cook for 20-30mins until the grains are soft and the water is absorbed. Leave this to cool before adding pomegranate seeds and lightly cooked peas.

While cooking the quinoa you can cook the lamb. Heat up a fry pan or skillet and place the meat in the pan (it should have a good sizzle when you do this otherwise its probably not hot enough), leave for about 4-5mins before turning over and giving it a further 4-5mins. The lamb should be nice a springy to the touch when you remove from the pan. Leave to rest for about 5 mins and then finely slice.

For the Dressing place everything in a blender or hand mixer and combine well. Use 1/3 of this to dress the Quinoa Salad and another 1/3 to dress the tomato and cucumbers in a separate bowl.

I served it up by placing a nice sparkly pile of Quinoa Salad on the bottom followed by slices of lamb and sprinkled the tomato and cumber over the top. You can used the last of the dressing to drizzle over the top if you wish. Deeeeeelicious!