Before going keto, I never ate lamb. Now that I know that I feel best on a moderate amount of protein and a high amount of fat, lamb has fast become my favourite meat to cook with.

My foray into lamb-eating as a child was less than successful. My Mum was a flexitarian growing up and my Dad was a strict vegan, ergo any type of meat in the house was a rarity. Still wanting us to get all of the necessary nutrients into our diet, my Mum would occasionally cook us meat despite her own sheepishness towards it. Unsurprisingly, the fact that my Mum infrequently cooked meat coupled with her paranoia about giving us food poisoning, meant the meat we ate was dry and often incinerated. In fact, if a sausage wasn’t completely black all over, I hesitated to eat it thinking that it was under cooked. 

My first experience with lamb was at a friend’s house. Her Mum had really pushed the boat out by making herb-crusted lamb chops which were completely lost on me as an unsophisticated 10 year-old. I had no idea that meat could be served medium or even medium-rare. When I saw that the chops were still pink in the centre, I thought my friend’s mum had made a mistake. Being incredibly British, I wanted to avoid embarrassing her by not remarking upon it, so I politely ate only the outside of the chop. I now look back on myself and cringe. 

This recipe came about after a trip to the Greek island Skopelos when I visited it last year. It’s claim to fame is that Mamma Mia was filmed there. Despite the first film being released over 10 years ago, all the restaurants, rather endearingly, have curled photographs of the cast and crew eating in their restaurant pinned to the walls. You also can’t eat out without the owner of the establishment wanting you to try his olive oil.

The spice mix I used for this recipe is made by the company Ellh, which I think is difficult to buy if you aren’t on a Greek island. If you find yourself not on one, fear not, you can recreate it with 1 tsp. each of dried oregano, dried thyme, dried spearmint, dried coriander and onion powder.

Serves 4

Ingredients:
4 ½  tbsp. beef tallow/drippings
500 g lamb, minced
a small onion (80 g), finely chopped
50 g almond flour
1 egg
2 tsp. Ellh’s spice mix
½ tsp. dried mint
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. cracked black pepper

Serve with suggestion: low-carb tzatziki and fresh mint

Special equipment: a cookie cutter 10 cm in diameter

1. Melt a little tallow in a medium frying pan on medium-high heat. Then fry the onion in the pan until lightly browned and sticky. Let cool to one side for a few minutes.

2. Put the lamb, almond flour, egg, herbs, salt and pepper in a bowl – only add the onion once it’s cooled as you’ll then need to mix the burger meat with your hands until the distribution of herbs is consistent.

3. Using the cookie cooker as a guide, cut out 8 squares of grease-proof paper (like in the photo below).

4. To make 8 thin burgers, measure out around 86 g of burger meat and place it in the middle of the cookie cutter on the greaseproof paper square. Then press the meat firmly down until it fills the circle. (My cutter had a wavy edge and a straight edge, I used the straight edge as I wanted my burgers to have a traditional neat edge.)

5. Then leave the newly formed patties to ‘congeal’ in the fridge in an air-tight container. If you miss this bit out, they will fall apart when it comes time to fry them. Leave them for an hour minimum.

6. Melt 1 tbsp. of tallow in the same frying pan that you cooked the onions in on medium-high heat. Place the patties in the pan – two at a time – and fry for a few minutes on each side until they are nicely browned and cooked all the way through. I suggest 1 tbsp. of tallow per 2 patties.

7. Serve with some low carb tzatziki and fresh mint, and enjoy!