Roast leg of lamb, served in its liquor.
© JE Nilsson & C.M. Cordeiro 2025
He likes his roast lamb seasoned with purpose. His approach is what you’d call classic: garlic pressed into little incisions, rosemary tucked in like tucked-in shirts, lemon zest, and a generous hand with black pepper. He’s methodical about it—like a man entrusted with something ancestral. The kind of preparation that smells like a cookbook come to life.
My own preference is… simpler. Salt. Maybe more salt. Good meat. Oven. Done.
There was no debate, not even a sideways glance. Just a quiet agreement to roast two legs of lamb. So we got out two roasting trays, and proceeded to work with two schools of thought. It made perfect sense.
The only real extravagance this year came in the form of eggs. I had become—quietly, then not so quietly—obsessed with finding eggs from the Swedish flower hen, a local breed that lays in a curated palette of museum neutrals. Cream, ash, buff, blush, light clay. Some looked like they came from a chicken, others from a chicken who once trained as a colourist at Farrow & Ball.
We drove up the coast in search of them, because two hours west-northwest of Sweden always feels shorter than one hour south, and logic is a flexible thing when you’re hunting for beautiful eggs. We eventually found them at a small shop in the middle of Gothenburg. Of course.
When we got home, I placed them in a bowl and then simply… stared at them. They were far too pretty to eat. They became the weekend’s centrepiece—twelve quiet, luxurious ovals, radiating calm and tasteful restraint. My personal fifty shades of beige.
Back to the lamb. After forty-five minutes in the oven, the kitchen filled with a very specific kind of confidence. It smelled like a Svenska Dagbladet Mat & Vin roast dining spread had wandered in and decided to stay for dinner. The rosemary was immediate. The garlic made sweeping declarations. The lemon zest hovered gently, like the memory of linen.
We sat down to eat. His lamb was—annoyingly—delicious. The kind of delicious that makes you involuntarily pause between bites. I glanced at the stove, where an old recipe card rested, its corner curled and slightly scorched. It must’ve been the one he used. Handwritten. Faded. Probably inherited.
I nodded toward it.
“You should keep that,” I said. “This lamb’s incredible.”
He looked at the card. Then at me.
“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t use that recipe.”
A dozen museum-toned eggs from the Swedish flower hen.
© JE Nilsson & C.M. Cordeiro 2025