Spicy Sundried Tomato Lamb Roast

This recipe of Spicy Sundried Tomato Lamb Roast was stumbled upon by mistake as I was planning on making pasta with sundried tomato pesto but realised after making the pesto that we had no pasta at home! It’s one of those moments when you are not on top of things, have been away from the kitchen for a while or simply have a blank moment! So there I was standing in our pantry thinking is it going to be an instant noodle or frozen pizza dinner as I did not have much time in hand!!??

I scuffled around the freezer to see what could save my day and came across a nice log of Lamb tenderloin so thought of making the sundried tomato pesto into a marinade and roasting it! You could use any cut of meat and of course chicken too which would take a much lesser time to cook.

It actually turned out quite nice and without much prep or cooking time at all!

Before moving to the UK I had never come across sundried tomatoes as its not used in Indian cuisine. It fact I was so ignorant about it that I did not even know that they sold dried tomatoes, as I never imagined anyone munching on a hard salty sour dried tomato as if they were eating raisins! I discovered it during one of my grocery shopping trips before the kids, when I used to have the leisure time of going around the sectioned  aisles and intriguing looking at different kinds of food stuff I had never heard or seen before. Like most calculated risk takers I started with those which poised the least culinary faux pas ! And so I bought my very first jar of sundried tomatoes in oil as it reminded me of the preserved vegetable pickles from home.

The first thing I tried it in was an Indian green beans dish in which I chopped the sundried tomatoes into small pieces and added it to the green beans! I enjoyed the tangy richness with a hint of sweetness and bite it gave to the dish! A penny fell when the taste reminded me of spaghetti bolognese I used to eat at a very small little Italian restaurant called Don Giovani, one of the first to be opened in Kolkata, India. I loved the richness of the tomato sauce and used to wonder what made the tomato sauce so tasty apart from the generous helping of oregano, again one of the newest kind of herb to be introduced. I am talking about the year 1996 when globalisation was knocking at India’s door and all things western had started to become immensely popular!

Fast forward to 2004, two years after moving to UK and my new found love for food where I used to search the internet for new recipes and ideas for random ingredients I used to pick up from the various aisles! So I figured that sundried tomatoes are used a lot in Italian and Mediterranean cuisines as a dressing, sauce, or used as toppings ! Then there are two varieties, one which was dried and looked similar to the texture of a dried fruit and the other which came in a oil filled jar sometimes with flavourings of herbs or garlic. I used both but the oil one came more handy for my quick recipes so I started storing them at home mainly to use as toppings or fillers!

So here goes the recipe for the stumbled upon Spicy sundried tomato lamb roast!