Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

179. Lemon Garlic Lamb Chops with Yogurt Sauce p.504


The recipe

The world is clearly changing, and The Book is starting to get a little bit dated. It’s only 4 years old, but a few things have changed in that time. I mostly notice it with specialty ingredients, which The Book suggests I’ll have to get by mail-order, but that are available at my local grocery store these days. The array of imported fresh fruits and vegetables is staggering, and the burgeoning interest in food from other cultures means that formerly exotic herbs and spices are commonplace. This recipe pairs lamb chops with a minted garlicky yogurt sauce, and calls for taking normal yogurt, straining it through cheesecloth, and letting most of the liquid drain away. This is the home-brew version of Greek / Mediterranean / Baltic yogurt. These days every grocery store in my neighborhood has three different brands to choose from, and that’s not counting the ones with fruit on the bottom.

This yogurt is an example of the good kind of food diversity. A beloved product from another culture, made locally, and not incurring the environmental costs of shipping fresh fruits and vegetables halfway around the world. Although, The Project wouldn’t be possible without the insane system food system we’ve set up for ourselves. No matter how much I want it to be true, tropical fruits just don’t grow in Montreal, and Parmigiano-Reggiano is only produced in Parma. I try to buy locally produced things when I can, but between the diversity of ingredients The Book calls for, and the short growing season we have up here, it’s just not possible for most of the year. That said, I picked up my first CSA box (community supported agriculture, or farm share) last week, and I’m looking forward to eating as much Quebec produce as I can between now and November.

I make a variation on this dish all the time, and I was pleased to find a version of one of my standby dinners in the book. The idea here is to marinade lamb shoulder chops in lemon juice, garlic, dried oregano, and olive oil, then to pat them dry, season with salt and pepper, and pan fry them. Once they’re done the pan is deglazed with the reserved marinade, and once the marinade has cooked for a minute it’s poured over the chops. The lamb is served with a yogurt sauce made of yogurt drained through cheese cloth (I just used Mediterranean yogurt), garlic, fresh mint, salt, and pepper.

This is an extremely simple recipe, and it doesn’t call for anything flashy in terms of ingredients or techniques. When a recipe is a simple as this, details count. The approach and ideas behind this dish are absolutely solid, but some things could have been done better. My main issue was that the shoulder chops were tough. Shoulder meat is tougher than other meat, but that’s the beauty of using lamb, even the shoulder is quite tender. The chops weren’t all that flavourful either, the pan sauce was packed with flavour, but the meat didn’t take on much from the marinade. Both of these problems could have been solved with a longer marinading time. The Book recommends 20 minutes on the counter-top, but if I did them again I’d go with at least three hours in the fridge. Epicurious posters report marinading them for up to 24 hours with good results. The chops were also overcooked by the time they were browned, using a thicker chop would have taken care of that. The idea with the pan sauce is to make a fond while cooking the chops, and then to scrape up the browned bits when making the pan sauce. The Book calls for a non-stick skillet for this operation. This is just silly. Non stick = less sticking = less browned bits to scrape up = less delicious pan sauce. Also, high temperature cooking in non stick cookware isn’t the greatest thing for your health. Beyond the chops, The Book’s instructions would have you stir together the yogurt sauce and serve it immediately, but a sauce like this one needs a minimum of an hour to come together. When it’s freshly made it’ll taste fine, but what a difference an hour will make. .

I’m really fond of this style of dish, but this recipe didn’t work out for me. I’ll stick with my improvised marinades and yogurt sauces. This absolutely could have been a good dish with just a few changes, but as it was I can’t give it a rave review.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

93. Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Lemon, Herbs, and Garlic p.502

The recipe

Spring lamb simply prepared is one of the best rewards I can think of for having suffered through a long winter. Spring lamb comes from a younger animal than lamb without an adjective. Generally spring lamb is 3-5 months old, but it can be called lamb right up until a year old. As the animal gets older it’s flavours become more pronounced, so a piece of spring lamb is going to me more delicate and tender than an older lamb. My dining companion is a bit tentative about lamb, but she likes it in small portions. She’s quite sensitive to the goaty flavours it can take on. For her sake I choose spring lamb whenever possible. I appreciate those more intense flavours, especially in a stew. Occasionally I can get my hands on some goat for a nice curry, and if anyone can point me in the direction of some mutton I’ll be forever indebted to you. Even spring lamb packs a serious flavour punch though. In this dish a leg of lamb (spring or otherwise) is taken off the bone, rubbed with lemon, thyme, rosemary, parsley and garlic, then allowed to sit for an hour for the spices to penetrate before being grilled to medium rare.

This preparation shows off everything that makes lamb great. It’s flavourful enough to stand up to a bold spice rub, it’s fatty so it does well with high heat, it cooks quickly, and tastes best just this side of medium-rare. A leg of lamb like this is what grills were invented for. It developed a pungent, crispy exterior, with a melting, delicate interior. The spice rub charred, and smoked the dish, but enough of it got worked into little crevasses that it retained some of its fresh taste. My only regret is that I have a gas grill. If ever there was a time to break out the hardwood charcoal this is it. Some real wood smoke would have done wonders for an already wonderful dish.

I’d like to take a moment to thank my instant read digital probe thermometer. This was the first dish I used it with, and I can’t tell you how happy it made me. Being able to close the grill with the probe in the meat (it’s attached by a long wire to the display), and set an alarm for the desired internal temperature was a revelation. Our grill is on the flimsy side, so every time we open it it loses a huge amount of heat, and it doesn’t have the mass to bounce back quickly. Being able to keep the lid closed means that the top side of the meat is still being roasted and browning without direct exposure to the heat. Since I started using the digital thermometer everything has been coming out better, and I don’t worry about over or under doing anything. It also means I only need to stab one hole, and the probe is much smaller than my old analogue one. If you don’t have one of these things you really owe it to yourself.

This dish was just fantastic. Lamb prepared like this is an absolute classic, and dozens of cultures have their variations on it. This one leans towards the Greek end of the spectrum, and it works exceptionally well. Many many other flavourful spice rubs could work with this preparation though. The beauty is in taking the lamb leg off the bone and butterflying it so that it grills quickly. Increasing the surface area also gets more flavour into the meat, and gives you more deliciously grilled crusty outside bits. I love that this preparation is easy enough for a casual supper, but would work well as the centerpiece for an Easter feast too. Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Lemon, Herbs, and Garlic has earned its five mushroom rating.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

12. Lamb Tagine With Prunes Apricots and Vegetables p. 510

the recipe

I’m not the hugest fan of meats in sweet sauces, and this certainly was sweet. Between the dried prunes, apricots, squash, sweet potato and honey it came close to cloying. There was a huge amount going on here, lamb isn’t a subtle flavour to begin with, and the all fruits and spices brought it near to sensory overload.

I know that Tagine’s and much North African cooking is based on these flavour profiles, but they are often more muted than they were here. The best Tagine’s I’ve had have kept the individual ingredients flavours distinct in each bite, with a mingling of their tastes in the sauce. Here I thought it blended too much, and it was texturally homogenous. I found the spicing to be quite nice, with ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg perfuming the sauce.

I would recommend cutting some of the fruit from this dish, and serving it as one of several elements in a meal. We had only this and couscous, and I really enjoyed the first few bites, I just tired of it rather quickly. The recipe also makes a whole lot of food, so my impression of this one may be tainted by having eaten days worth of leftovers.