Spiced lamb chops with houmous

“In terms of instant dinner gratification, you can’t get much better than this,” says food writer Georgina Hayden.

“It’s up there as one of the quickest meals in the book, worthy to make any weekly repertoire. It takes such little effort for such a lot of flavour – especially if you buy good ready-made houmous.”

Ingredients

8 lamb chops

2 garlic cloves

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

Olive oil

2 lemons

2 shallots

2 green chillies

A few sprigs of mint

30g pistachios or almonds

200g houmous, shop-bought or homemade

Method:

1. Place the lamb chops in a mixing bowl or dish and crush in the garlic. Season well and add the ground cumin and coriander. Pour in enough olive oil to coat and squeeze in the juice of one lemon. Really massage the flavours into the chops, then cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for as long as you can, bringing it out 20 minutes before you want to cook. If you don’t have much time, just leave to one side on the kitchen counter for at least five minutes.

2. While the lamb is marinating, peel and finely slice the shallots. Place in a small bowl with the juice of the remaining lemon and a good pinch of salt. Halve, deseed and finely slice the chillies. Toss through the lemony shallots. Pick the mint leaves and roughly chop. Finely chop the pistachios, then set aside. Spoon the houmous out on a serving plate.

3. Place a griddle pan on a high heat and get it hot. Grill the lamb chops for about four minutes on each side, this will give you just-blushing lamb. You can cook them for less or more time depending on your taste.

I like to finish by propping them up on the fatty side to get it crisp (this was always my mum’s favourite bit). You don’t want to crowd the pan, so you might need to do this in two batches; if so, rest the cooked chops in a very low oven while you cook the others. As soon as all the chops are ready, place them on top of the houmous. Toss the mint through the shallot mixture and scatter over the top with the pistachios.

The Independent