Home Made Mint Sauce

One of my earliest memories is being at my Nan's with her and my mother being in the kitchen working away as usual. If you wanted to be with my Nan you had to be where she was as she was always on the go and rarely sat down for a break.  I was always a curious child a trait that is still with me today.  I used to watch and listen drinking in knowledge without realising it as my Nan or my Mum went rythmically about their tasks.    One of which was making home made mint sauce first stripping away the leaves from the stems and chopping the freshly plucked fragrant mint a very finely.  Chopping with a sharp knife at the mint sprinkled either with a pinch of salt or sugar to give some purchase to the knife. Some of it I have frozen and at other times I have put up a few jars of long keeping mint sauce as well so that I can get the best of both worlds from the stores I have popped up for darker days.

With all the rain that we have been having this year my mint in my herb border has gone into overdrive and I have been making copious amounts of fresh Mint sauce to pep up some of the meals we have been having.  We are rather partial to minted lamb steaks which  make a quick simple meal in any event and less oven time than a joint in any event.  Although it is also superb mixed into plain yogurt to make your own mint raita for a home made curry as well.

First we strip the leaves from their stems and then gather together the leaves

Then we start to chop the leaves with a nice sharp knife, this may take a little while to get down to the required texture but it is worth it

To give purchase to the blade and to give it some grit in which to chop the mint down I sprinkle in a pinch of sugar or a pinch of salt

 Once it is down to the required texture I then add a drop of vinegar and some hot water or some wine and hot water

 And here to make your mouth water is one of my minted lamb chop meals with extra home made fresh mint sauce

If you want to pop up the chopped mint leaves into the freezer pop the pulp into the ice cube tray and then top up with either a little water (if going to use for general use perhaps the best way to do it or just for mint sauce add a drop of vinegar and then pop into the freezer to set.  Once solid decant into bags marked up with the relevant herb in it and then when you need a little mint just liberate a mint cube should make enough for two  as a little goes a long way with this.

Alternatively you could make some long keeping mint sauce for the pantry shelf.

Here are a couple of links to some previous posts I have published if you want some more ideas on how to use this very fragrant herb

http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/mint_11.html

http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/mint-recipes-2.html

Catch you soon

Take care

Pattypan

xx