Serves: 4 (2 of you in reality)

One of our favourite pastimes comes in three parts:

1. Long, lunch with a few bottles of wine
2. A few more drinks at home, music, laughter, talking shit
3. Making the sort of dinner you want after 1. and 2.

Point 3. of course requires planning because you can’t just decide on a whim to cook something wonderful and outrageous on the couch at home. You not only need the ingredients to be in the fridge, you likely need to have made a start on it… because nobody feels like cooking a fresh meal at 7pm on a Saturday night after a few wines.

We spent a few nights up in Newcastle last year leading up to NYE.

We love a place up there – Parry Street Garage – which serves great pizza and pasta, great wines and beers and more great wine. And it was within walking distance of our AirBNB.

Fast-forward a few hours, the music is on and we commence Matt Preston’s Cheat’s Lamb Pide.

Fast forward another hour or so and we have the best, Saturday-night – still drinking wine – dinner, in Merewether.

Do this the next time you have your own long lunch and finish (or start) the night right!

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
600gm lamb mince
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Seeds of 1 pomegranate
1/4 cup un-roasted pistachio kernels, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup mint leaves, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 oval-shaped rolls or small baguettes
1/3 cup Greek-style yoghurt (full fat!)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160c.
2. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat and add the lamb mince; cook, breaking up the mince for 10 minutes until well browned and crisping.
3. Add the garlic, cumin, paprika and cinnamon and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Stir in the tomato and cook for 4 minutes until the tomato starts to break down. Season.
4. Time for a red wine: pour one glass and enjoy. Turn the music up.
5. Combine the pomegranate seeds, chopped pistachios, parsley, mint, lemon juice and remaining oil in a bowl.
6. Cut a long slit along the top of each bread roll, ensuring that you do not cut all the way through. Open the roll slightly and scoop out a little of the bread. Spoon in the lamb mixture into the rolls to fill. Place on a baking tray and bake for 5 – 10 minutes until warmed through and the rolls are crisp and crunchy on the outside.
7. Top the rolls with yoghurt and sprinkle with the pomegranate mixture.
8. Tequila time!