Read Mumsnet users reviews on Love Lamb Week recipes

[EllieMumsnet]

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We’ve got together with Simply Beef & Lamb to find 100 MNers to take part in Love Lamb Week and test out 1 of 5 new lamb recipes. Each tester was sent either: garlic & mustard marinated lamb steaks, lamb caesar salad, lamb leg steaks with a paprika & herb rub, teriyaki lamb stir fry or a quick lamb wrap recipe to try with a loved one.

Here’s what Simply Beef & Lamb have to say: “We’d like to give parents the confidence to cook with lamb midweek, using lamb leg steaks as an easy introduction. They are versatile, relatively low price and can be cooked in less than 30 minutes.”

If you’ve taken part in this test, Simply Beef & Lamb would like you to post on this thread, answering the questions below:

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
• How easy did you find the dish to cook?
• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

We’d also love to see some photos of the finished #lovelamb dishes and/or the cooking process, so please do share some on the thread if you can!

All those who give the required feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Which lamb dish did you cook?
Lamb Leg Steaks with Herb and Paprika Rub

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Made it for my husband, 2 year old DS and Husband - It was lovely! we're big fans of lamb and Paprika but have never thought of mixing the two! Perfect smokey taste which would be great on the BBQ, we both agreed it would feature on the next NEW menu!

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

took all of 5 minutes to prep - perfect for a midweek meal and a busy BBQ

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

yes - no oil was used as it was a dry rub, we grilled the lamb and had it with homemade wedges and salad

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

I got all the ingredients for under a tenner and was left with loads of the herbs/spices so definitely value for money! I could easily make another 15 portions of the rub.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why? Yes - were huge lamb fans here anyway but I normally stick to the pre-marinated steaks- not anymore!

Which lamb dish did you cook?

Lamb steaks with paprika rub.

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Yes we enjoyed the dish very much although the portions were small.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

It was very simple and straightforward

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes, as healthy as you can be with red meat!

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

The high cost of lamb doesn't make it good value so it's just a treat for us

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

only on a special occasion because of the price.

• Which lamb dish did you cook?

Teriyaki Lamb Stir Fry Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? We both enjoyed it, stir fry isn't something I cook often but will be adding it to my repertoire.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Super easy and very quick. I always think of land as a meat that needs to be voted long and slow so this was a real eye opener.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Very healthy as you can use any veg so I put in loads. The recipe didn't really need the added sugar.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Lamb isn't the cheapest meat but I didn't use much and cheap isn't always best.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes, absolutely. Its great to try different dishes and we really enjoyed this one. My picture didn't really do it justice, it was delicious.

Firstly, thank you for the opportunity to be able to cook this dish! It was a really nice chance to be told what to cook rather than have to think about it!!

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

We cooked the garlic and mustard marinated lamb. We did enjoy the taste of the Iamb, although hubby more so than me. I had to cook mine through sadly due to being pregnant, I would have rather had it pink!

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

It was a very simple dish to cook, a longer marinade would have been been better though, but due to one thing and another, we just didn't have time to leave it for longer than the 20 mins recommended. Pan cooking would have given it more flavour too, but would have made it very unhealthy with the amount of butter we would have used!

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

I generally consider lamb to be a very fatty meat, but there wasn't as much fat on the lamb as I was expecting, therefore yes, I think it is a healthy dish, especially with the accompaniments.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

I always do find lamb pricey, and ended up buying slightly larger pieces of lamb as the smaller pieces wouldn't have filled my husband. In this respect, it was pricey, even when it was on offer in Sainsbury's! £5.36 for the lamb. We wouldn't normally spend this amount on meat for a midweek meal from the supermarket. If it was a dish that would have created left overs for lunch or dinner for our toddler too, then I would happily spend more.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Personally, I would rather have lamb rump, but it has opened up my eyes to the fact that lamb leg is a nice enough cut to eat as just a piece of meat rather than just using it in a stew etc.

I imagine , especially with the sides, it would be a great BBQ dish. I wasn't bowled over by the accompaniments suggested for the dish - it didn't make it feel like a 'special' dish. When purchasing something like this lamb at this price for dinner, I would rather have had more exciting / special accompaniments. For a quick midweek meal, fine, but as mentioned above, we wouldn't purchase something like this , at this price, for a quick midweek meal.

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

We cooked the teriyaki lamb stir fry. All four of us enjoyed it; I wouldn't have thought of putting this sauce with lamb, but it worked well.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

I had no trouble following the recipe. It was simple and a quick, easy meal to make in the evening.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes, but I didn't feel the added sugar was necessary. I think it would have been just as tasty without it, so if I made it again I would leave it out.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

In comparison to our normal meals, no. The meat was a lot more expensive per kg than what we would normally choose due to budget constraints.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes, for a special occasion. They were tasty, tender and easy to cook, and it was great to get some inspiration for a recipe to use lamb in that wasn't roast dinner or shepherd's pie!

I really enjoyed this challenge, thanks MNHQ

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

Lamb teriyaki. Yes, we both enjoyed it, it was delicious. I have never cooked with lamb leg steaks before and I will definitely make again.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Very easy, only real preparation was slicing the lamb, which was easy, and mixing the teriyaki sauce, lime and spices

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes, but I did leave out the tablespoon of sugar that the recipe asked for. There is sugar in the teriyaki sauce so it seemed unnecessary. There was lots of veg in there and the lamb was very lean so I think it was healthy.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Yes and no. The lamb was quite expensive and overall I spent more than £10 on the ingredients. However, I have the sauce and spices to use again so it will be cheaper next time. I think it is more a treat meal, especially if cooking for more than two people.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes. They were easy to prepare, not at all fatty, and really tasted good.

Will definitely ok with lamb leg steaks again, may try some of the other recipes on this thread

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

We cooked the Lamb Caesar Salad - we loved the taste, the method of cooking produced the best tasting lamb we've ever had!!

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

It was so easy!! The ingredients for the dressing were all whizzed up in the food processor, the lamb cut into pieces and cooked in the pan for less than 10 minutes the all tossed together and shavings of Parmesan on top!

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

It was pretty healthy I thought, just some oil in the dressing and a bit of Parmesan.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

It was okay, we bought the lamb at the butcher counter in Morrisons and it was more then what I would pay for a meal for 2.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes we would - because we know realise how easy it is to cook a really tasty meal with.

Which lamb dish did you cook?
Garlic and mustard marinated lamb steaks

Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Yes! Dh actually said it was restaurant standard!! Never had such a compliment about my cooking before!

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Really easy, hardest part was remembering to but the meat in to marinade the night before.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes, the meat was grilled and served with lots of veg.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

It was more than I would normally spend on meat for one meal, but it wasn't as expensive as I though lamb steaks would be.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes, It was so tasty and the recipe was so simple and quick, definitely will have a go at it again! I have been very pleasantly surprised at how good the lamb steaks were!

Missed attaching my photo!

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

I cooked the garlic & mustard lamb steaks for my DH & DS(ister). I'm veggie so didn't try any but they both loved it. I thought the marinade smelled great & will do myself some tofu in it next time.

How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Very easy. I'm not confident at cooking meat but we barbecued it at my sister's house & I had supervision!

- Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Reasonably healthy. I enjoyed the suggested sides.

-Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

I thought the lamb was fairly expensive but worth it as an alternative to my quite boring chicken dishes.

- Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

DH would like us to cook it again & I'd like the kids to try it but they're quite fussy! It's definitely something I'll look for again while shopping - I tend to ignore lamb as I've never really known what to do with it! I'd also like to have a go at the other recipes which have been tested.

We tested the garlic and mustard recipe. I found the recipe very easy to prepare. I loved the way whenever I opened the fridge door I got an amazing waft of garlic as the meat was marinating.

I bought my lamb steaks from the butcher in Morrisons and they were as lean as he could give me.

The final dish was so easy to cook. I served mine with cous cous and salad. Hubby loves it!!!

Thank you

-Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Quick lamb wraps
My husband and I thought they were delicious. Toddler enjoyed the flavours but picked out most of the lamb.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Not as quick as I'd hoped. Next time I'll skip the fresh herbs (which I couldn't taste due to the strong sauce), use pre-chopped garlic and microwaveable rice. My local supermarket doesn't sell lamb stir-fry strips but I'd definitely switch to those if they'd been available.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes. Lots of tasty nutritious ingredients.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Not especially on the first go as I had to buy every ingredient. Now I have some of them in the house, it would be a reasonable price.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes. They are delicious and I am planning to make a quicker version of this meal again.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? We had the garlic and mustard lambs leg steaks. They were lovely, DP and I really enjoyed them. We gave the baby a few slivers too, and she gobbled them up.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook? Very.
• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal? Yes - the lamb was nice and lean. I reduced the amount of oil in the recipe though - 2 tablespoons seemed far too much.
• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value? Reasonably. The lamb wasn't the cheapest, but this was balanced out by how cheap the other ingredients are.
• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why? Yes. I was impressed by how easy it was to make something healthy and a bit different.

Forgot to put the pic!

We had the Quick Lamb Wraps. They were very tasty.
The dish was fairly easy to prepare and cook.
Lovely healthy meal for after training although not enough for us. I did some sweet potato fries on the side.
It is fairly good value but more of a treat meal as this is quite expensive compared to what we usually have.
I like leg of lamb steaks as they are fairly versatile and I like the inspiration that this post has given me for including them in our meals.

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

The garlic and mustard marinated lamb steaks. My DH loved them. I liked them and the lamb was lovely and tender, but I didn't think they were particularly exciting either.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Super easy. They would be great as a midweek meal because you could marinate them the night before then it takes minutes to cook.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes I did. I grilled mine but DH pan fried his (he comes home later than me, so we ate separately) and his looked nicer, but I still think I would choose the healthier grilled option if I cooked them again.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

The lamb itself was expensive, but the other ingredients were all things which most people would have in the cupboard, or can be bought cheaply, so overall it was good value for a lamb recipe.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

I would. We never have lamb steaks normally but I liked the flavour and how tender they were and I'd quite like to try out some different recipes now. It's not something we could afford to eat on a regular basis, but it would be lovely as an occasional treat.

Which lamb dish did you cook? I made the lamb wraps.
Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? I really like lamb but DH is generally not too keen.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

It was really straight forward. It took longer than I expected to cook through the lamb strips for 4 of us but it wasn't a problem.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes, it was sustaining too!

• Did you consider the dish to be good value?

It was good value, but cost more than we would usually spend on a meal at home for usa ll. What made it good value? Using rice as it's so cheap and wraps which we could buy in batches and freeze if we were going to make it regularly.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

They were tasty, even DH enjoyed it so most likely, Yes!

First of all, I didn't received the recipe in the letter, then I received an email saying the receipt would come but never did, so I went online to look up at it, but I thinks the all process should have been a little more clearer.

• Which lamb dish did you cook?

I cooked the Lamb teriyaki stir fry which was delicious! Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste? The all family loved it, including my fussy eater 4 years old. We usually have lamb steaks once a fortnight and this was a great alternative on how to cook it.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

I found a little tricky to find all the ingredients in the store so grocery took a little longer than normal, but once at home all was easy to do and instructions on the recipe were easy to follow - Do you consider it to be a healthy meal? I think so as the meat was lean and all was made from scratch. -Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value? Most of the ingredients to Mage the sauce once bough can be used again, so if the meal gets repeated over it would be even better value

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

As a tinkly we are used to eat lamb shoulder steak so this is a good alternative which I would definitely repeat on our menu, with the addition of some boiled or Jasmin rice as a side though it would be a more completed meal.

Just to add to our experience; we didn't receive the recipe either, or a link to the recipe, we went online and fingers crossed followed the correct recipe!

Thank you for letting us take part in this trial. We all love lamb so were excited about trying a new recipe out.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
We cooked the lamb leg steaks with herb and paprika rub. They were a huge hit with both DCs, DH and myself. It was very tasty. We doubled up on the recipe as a have a very hungry teenager!

How easy did you find the dish to cook?
Extremely easy. I couldn't believe how quick it was to prepare. I used some of the spices to add to our potato wedges and they were delicious. We also had salad and coleslaw as an accompaniment.

Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?
Very healthy considering there was no oil added. There was very little fat on the lamb too.

Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?
It was a little pricey but we will definitely have this as a midweek dinner when we are rushed for time. This was such a good recipe and couldn't believe how yummy the lamb steaks tasted. A big thumbs up from all of us!

Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?
Yes we would. I would pay the extra to have lean meat that is healthy, tasty and so easy to prepare. I would be interested to try the other recipes too.

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

I cooked the leg steaks with paprika and herb rub. We both very much enjoyed it, the steaks had a great flavour and it was a completely different way to how we usually cook lamb.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

Very- mixing all of the herbs on a plate and then just popping the steaks under the grill was really quick and left minimal washing up!

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal?

Yes, being grilled a bit of fat dropped off of the steaks but they didn't dry out.

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?

Yes, the lamb steaks were about £3 which is far cheaper than beef but just as tasty. Once you have bought all of the herbs for the rub you have plenty left in the cupboard to make the dish again.

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?

Yes. I didn't realise they kept so moist and tasty when grilled and don't go dry even when cooked without any oil.

Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?
Lamb Caesar Salad and yes we both enjoyed the taste.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook? Quite easy - the lamb took a bit of trimming to get all the fatty bits off though I could have just cooked it with them on and eaten round them. I think I would maybe simplify it in future by adding a ready made dressing

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal? Yes except there was quite a bit of oil in the dressing - could easily alter that in future though

• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value?Yes - a delicious and tender cut of meat that could actually have gone further by adding more of the other salad elements. Spent a bit of money on store cupboard items e.g. Dijon mustard but they are useful for other things now

• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why?Yes definitely - so much flavour and so tender. The other recipes look yummy too and I would love to try a lamb leg steak stroganoff

Also, I loved the idea of using lamb in a salad - I had never considered doing this before and it worked really well

Lamb Caesar Salad photo

• Which lamb dish did you cook? Did you and your loved one enjoy the taste?

We were selected to the lamb Caesar salad which I was really pleased to get as it's super healthy but tasty too. As a huge lover of lamb I was really impressed with this dish. I was also shocked on the differences between a British lamb steak and a New Zealand lamb steak. The British was much juicier and was overall more tender. The salad itself was delicious. We did add a few sneaky bits in on the salad extras to bulk it out a bit like cucumber. The Caesar dressing was a great recipe and tasted great too.

• How easy did you find the dish to cook?

The dish was really easy. The only real effort was the dressing and even that was simple. Everything else was really straight forward and was easy and quick to cook. The only thing I would change is by cooking the steaks while you can get the steak to stay juicier and provides the rest time before chopping. Where as chopping them beforehand meant the steak very quickly dried out. I also cooked my own croutons to give them a bit more taste and was healthier too. Other than that it was a fun recipe to follow and an easy week day meal.

• Do you consider it to be a healthy meal? It was a really healthy meal with lots of different veggies in it. As I'm very conscious about our family eating abbie healthier now I was really happy to get those dish considering how healthy a salad is and with a homemade dressing it definitely satisfies the health side.
• Did you consider the dish to be good value? What made it good value? Lamb steaks are on the pricier side so for a family of five this meal can come to a considerable amount. However working on the ingredients given we were able to do it for 5 for under 10 pound which is good for a more expensive meal than usual so a bit of a treat to have lamb. The other ingredients counter balanced the use of an expensive meat as they were all super cheap and easy to get. Overall I would say this is good value for money as I was able to get a lot out of what was given.
• Would you buy lamb leg steaks again? If so why? I would buy the British lamb steaks again but not the New Zealand. Although both were tasty I would go for British because of it being overall tastier. There are so many meals you can do with them so I think the steaks are a good treat to have when you want a break from chicken or the other cheaper meats.

I've included a picture of the lamb pre cooking, in cooking and the finished product!