Everyone in the southern hemisphere who has a vegie patch is sure to have mint galore.  Once a fortnight, I rip it out, leaving only a small patch to run riot for the next fortnight. It is amazingly prolific.  We use a lot of mint but nowhere near as much as we grow.

I am going through a barbecued lamb phase at the moment.  This consists of buying a butterflied leg of lamb, marinating it in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, rosemary and oregano and then cooking it over a high temperature on the barbecue.  When it is cooked, I pour a decent amount of mint sauce over the lamb then let it rest for 10 minutes or so.  Alas, we arrived in Bridgetown on Christmas Eve without mint sauce.  What was I to do?  After one look at the prolific mint, I decided to make some.  It is so very easy and it is great to find a use for some of that mint.

This recipe is from taste.com.au, although I have changed the amount of water and sugar somewhat.  I found the original quantities made the sauce a little too tangy.  You may also want to play around with the quantities.

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup chopped mint
• 2 tbs* caster sugar
• ½ cup boiling water
• ½ cup white vinegar

*These are 20 mil tablespoons.

Instructions:

1. Put the mint into a heat-resistant bowl.
2. Add the sugar and boiling water and stir until the sugar dissolves.
3. Add the vinegar and mix well.

I also added 2 teaspoons of Instant Clearjel to thicken the sauce slightly.  I appreciate most Australians don’t have Clearjel in their cupboard so you won’t be able to do this but US readers may wish to thicken their sauce.  I slowly sprinkled the Instant Clearjel into the vinegar whilst Maus whisked it.  As I am sure all who have used Instant Clearjel know, it is very quick to clump.  If it does, just give it a whirl with a stick blender before adding the vinegar to the mint.