Crumbed lamb cutlets with hazelnut sauce

Trim the untidy bits off the cutlets to a clean shape, keeping the trimmings for the sauce; the top of the bone can be scraped or left.

Return the trimmed cutlets to the fridge.

Roast the hazelnuts on an oven tray at 180C for about 10 minutes, until the skins start to crack.

Rub the hazelnuts one by one in a tea towel to remove all the skin; no skin must reach the sauce.

Chop the hazelnuts in a food processor, or crush them with the back of a spoon.

Brown the lamb trimmings in a small pan over very high heat with no added fat, one to two minutes, so the meat renders its own fat and leaves caramelized juices on the bottom.

Add the mirepoix of carrot, onion and shallot with thyme, bay leaf and rosemary and sweat two to three minutes.

Cover the vegetables with water, raise the heat and scrape all the brown from the bottom into the liquid.

Bring to the boil, drop the heat, add a little pepper; do not salt at this stage.

Simmer and reduce 15 to 20 minutes, adding a little water if needed. Twenty minutes was not enough for a concentrated flavour and it went to almost forty.

Pour the concentrated jus into the separately reduced cream, pressing to get the flavour out.

Add one or two teaspoons of roasted hazelnut, bring back to the boil over medium heat and leave the sauce reducing until service.

Season the cutlets with salt and pepper on both sides.

Crumb in three stations: flour, then beaten egg, then a mix of breadcrumbs and ground hazelnut, pressing the coating on with the fingers.

Melt a knob of butter over medium heat, not too high, because butter burns.

Fry the cutlets five minutes on each side, watching that they do not burn.

Plate two chops stacked with the roasted fennel and roasted tomatoes and a little rosemary, with the hazelnut sauce served on the side.