Coincidentally, last night's Iron Chef, on Oz tv, had the theme ingredient of lamb. They said that to be called lamb it had to be under one year old - but this is the gourmet kitchen stadium definition and may not apply to us everyday folks.

If you haven't seen Iron Chef, it's a hoot. It's the Ironman/Gladiators, japanese kitchen style. Three or four kitchen champions called Iron Chefs and one challenger per show who chooses one of the Iron Chefs to do battle with. The brains behind the show, Chairman Kaga, then reveals the theme ingredient and "bang a gong, we are ON!" They then have one hour to cook their dishes and then there is a tasting panel which scores their results and one is declared the winner.

The only thing is that the theme ingredient is often seafood which doesn't interest me. Last night there were two programmes shown and the first one had the theme of onions.   Sometimes it is a vegetable or fruit, or milk, or cheese, or meat.

I've been watching it for a couple of years now and it is funny, because of the Ironman/Gladiators idea, but it is serious because of the chefs and their styles of cooking and ideas for theme ingredients.

Last night the chefs made mustard crusted rack of lamb, lamb en brioche, and baked French style lamb pizza, etc, but nothing specifically japanese.

Helen