Rack of Lamb with Morels, Asparagus, and Mustard Seeds

Bryan loves rack of lamb but often avoids it because he hates getting his hands dirty. If we do end up ordering it at a nice restaurant, he eats as much as he can (with a fork and knife) and then hands me the bone, which I proceed to gnaw on quite happily.

After all, the meat next to the bone is the tastiest part, right?

This post is part 3 of the crazy lamb-centric meal that I created on Sunday night (right after our crazy snowstorm) in honor of Lamb Lover's Month in collaboration with the American Lamb Board. Other posts in this series include Lamb Loin with Chili, Mint, and Mustard Seed and Lamb Bolognese.
Inspired mostly by Daniel Humm's preparation of lamb rack in his Eleven Madison Park cookbook, I decided to try adapting his gorgeous (insanely complicated) dish into something that a home cook a whip up in a couple hours for a nice, romantic dinner.

Daniel Humm makes a morel mushroom cream sauce by cooking fresh morel mushrooms with butter, shallots, and cream. I simplified this by just cooking reconstituted dried morel mushrooms with a bit of butter and salt.

His recipe also calls for handmade lamb tortellinis (filled with lamb shank, goat cheese, mint, sheep's milk yogurt, among other things). I simplified this quite a bit by making a lamb Bolognese instead and adding "swirls" of pasta on the plate.

I made braised mustard seeds from a recipe in Grant Achatz's Alinea (since Daniel Humm's book didn't have it, even though the picture of the finished product clearly includes mustard seeds).

Finally, inspired by the artful way in which Daniel Humm always plates his dishes, I tried to recreate something that was similar.

Enjoy!

Rack of Lamb with Morels, Asparagus, and Mustard Seeds
1 Rack of lamb, Frenched
Salt and pepper
1 T Olive oil
2-4 Morel mushrooms
1 T butter
2-3 mint leaves
1 tsp braised mustard seeds (see below)
1 asparagus stalk

Prepare rack of lamb (two ways described below)

Sous Vide
Generously season with salt and pepper the entire rack of lamb. Vacuum pack lamb inside a vacuum bag with 1 T olive oil and seal. Cook sous vide at 55 °C (130 ° F) for two hours. Quickly sear the edge in a very hot cast iron pot for about 1 minute or until a nice sear has been formed. Slice lamb rack between the ribs.

Oven Roasted
Generously season with salt and pepper the entire rack of lamb. Cover the bone tips with foil to prevent then from burning. Allow rack to warm up to room temperature (about 1 hour). Preheat oven to 350 °F. Sear all sides of the lamb rack in a cast iron skillet. Place in the oven and cook until the rack reaches an internal temperature of 145 °F (medium rare). Let the rack rest of 10 minutes before slicing between the ribs.

Asparagus Ribbons
Bring a pot of water to boil. Cook asparagus for 3-4 minutes. Rinse immediately with cold water to preserve the bright green color. Shave thin ribbons with a peeler.

Butter Morel Mushrooms
Melt 1T butter over medium heat until melted. Cook Morel mushrooms in butter for about 5 minutes, until softened. Season with salt to taste.

Braised Mustard Seeds

50g (1.8 oz) dried mustard seeds
50g water
5g white wine vinegar
3g sugar
1g Kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. Cover and let stand for an hour. Water will be completely absorbed and mustard seeds will be plump and tender.

Putting It All Together
Arrange each plate with the components:
1 sliced lamb rack
1 butter morel mushroom
2-3 small scoops of braised mustard seed
2-3 mint leaves
1-2 lamb Bolognese ribbon swirls

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I received free lamb from the American Lamb Board. 

Lamb Bolognese

I've been scared to make bolognese for a long time. Probably a couple years, in fact.

I'm one of those people that is strongly motivated by success. The ugly flip side of that is I'm strongly demotivated by failures. I still remember the first time I tried making bolognese. I had found this purportedly authentic recipe off of a food blog devoted to Italian food. I slaved over the sauce, letting it stew for hours all afternoon. I followed the supposed "rules" of a traditional bolognese - "no tomatoes!" "No herbs!".

After hours of slaving away in the kitchen, I invited Bryan to join me in partaking in my creation.

"It's sort of bland. It's lacking that depth of flavor."

I was so disheartened, I didn't make bolognese for almost three years . . . . until now.

This post is part 2 of the crazy lamb-centric meal that I created on Sunday night (right after our crazy snowstorm) in honor of Lamb Lover's Month in collaboration with the American Lamb Board. Other posts in this series include Lamb Loin with Chili, Mint, and Mustard Seed and Rack of Lamb with Morels, Asparagus, and Mustard Seeds.

This bolognese is a little different because it's made with ground lamb. I pretty much followed a traditional bolognese recipe but with a few tweaks.

First, I used a decent bottle of Italian chianti as the wine. The Nipozzano Riserva Chianti Rufina (2008) retails for about $18. The 2007 vintage (which we also own but Bryan didn't want me to use it for cooking) actually made Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines list in 2010.

Second, I made the bolognese in a pressure cooker. It was awesome - instead of stewing for 3 hours on the stove, I only cooked it for about 20-30 minutes, tops. It came out super tender, flavorful, and was one of the most popular dishes of the night.

Finally, I snuck in a few less conventional ingredients. I didn't have pancetta on hand, so I used a few strips of bacon instead. I also threw in a handful of diced tomatoes because I felt that the sauce could be just a tad brighter. Finally, I did add herbs!

It turned out great, and I totally plan on making this again. The guests I made it for loved it. My one friend who really loves lamb enjoyed this dish more because she thought it had more of that "gamey" flavor. Guess what? I couldn't find American ground lamb at the market, so this pasta was actually made using New Zealand lamb. Of course, you can easily use American lamb if you prefer a less gamey/grassy flavor.

Between using the pressure cooker and the food processor for chopping the mirepoix, this could almost be a weeknight meal that I can still make from scratch!

Enjoy!



Lamb Bolognese
Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main dish

mirepoix (1 carrot, 1 celery, ½ onion)
3 slices bacon, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
¾ cup red wine

¼ cup tomato paste
1 cup chicken broth

1 lb ground lamb
½ cup diced San Marzano canned tomatoes (optional)
½ T dried rosemary
1 bay leaf
salt & papper to taste
1 package of pasta of your choice ( 8-12 oz dried; 1 lb fresh)

1. Make mirepoix by finely chopping carrots, celery, and onions in a food processor. Set aside.

2. Cook bacon at medium heat in a pressure cooker (or normal Dutch oven) until fat is rendered. Add mirepoix and garlic and cook in the bacon fat for about 10 minutes, or until softened.

3. Add wine and deglaze the pan. Cook at medium high heat until all the alcohol has evaporated. While waiting, mix together the tomato paste and the chicken broth.

4. Add lamb and cook until no longer pink.

5. Add tomato paste/broth mixture and optionally tomatoes to the pot.

6. Add rosemary and bay leaf and cook under pressure for 10 minutes. Release the pressure.

 7. Add 1 cup of water, mix up the sauce, and cook again under pressure for at least 10 minutes or more. During this time, cook pappardelle according to the directions on the package.

 8. Release the pressure of the pressure cooker and cook off any excess liquid until sauce is nice and thick. Season to taste and serve with the pappardelle.  Optionally roll pappardelle “ribbons” into swirls for plating.

Serve!

Pasta "rolls" accompany a rack of lamb dish

Lamb Loin with Chili, Mint, and Mustard Seed

I'm sure most people's culinary worlds expand after marriage.

After all, it's unusual for two people to have exactly the same palate, upbringing, and preferences when it comes to food. Inevitably, your tongue will be opened to a wider variety of flavors when these two worlds collide.

Case in point: When Bryan and I first got married, I mostly cooked Chinese food, with a bent towards Taiwanese cuisine. It was the food I grew up eating, and I was comfortable cooking it. As time has gone by, in an effort cater to Bryan's palate, I've moved towards cooking a broader range of food, such as trying to perfect his favorite pasta dishes, making way more steak than I ever would have on my own, and . . . . learning how to cook lamb.

I never really liked lamb because I've always found it to be a bit too gamey. However, for the sake of my husband, I've been dabbling in trying to learn more about how to prepare perfect lamb. In honor of Lamb Lover's Month in partnership with the American Lamb Board, I had the opportunity to explored several lamb dishes this weekend. Bryan was thrilled to eat so much lamb while enjoying some of his favorite bottles of red wine at home.

Me? I'm excited to continue expanding my repertoire of dishes I can make.

And maybe, just maybe, I am finally starting to enjoy lamb.

The American Lamb Board provided me with some lamb loin chops with which to "play" to celebrate Lamb Lovers Month. Most lamb sold in the US is either locally raised or imported (mostly from Australia or New Zealand).

To prepare, I pored over books by Grant Achatz (Alinea cookbook), Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park cookbook), and Nathan Myhrvold (Modernist Cuisine at Home) looking for inspiration. I soon realized that most of these dishes were not suited for the home cook, requiring a plethora of complex components as well as fancy equipment.

However, after reading some of these recipes, I was surprised to see that oftentimes, the preparation of the main protein is not necessarily complex. More often than not, it's the creative combination of side ingredients and their flavors that make these dishes three-star Michelin quality.

So I decided to draw inspiration from one of these recipes but simplify it for the home cook. I chose Grant Achatz's "Lamb in Cubism" recipe, incorporating his ideas of whimsically accenting sous vide lamb loins with mint, braised mustard seeds, and red jalapeno chilies.

I do own one piece of slightly "fancy" equipment that I decided to use - my sous vide machine. It makes cooking lamb to a perfect medium rare absolutely brainless. Just set the temperature and cook the vacuum sealed lamb (seasoned liberally with salt, pepper, and olive oil), for about two hours.

Lamb makes me think of spring, so I decided to add a few more "spring-like" accompaniments to the meal, like butter sauteed morel mushrooms and lightly blanched asparagus ribbons (please see this post for recipes on how to make those components).

After briefly searing the sous-vide cooked lamb (just to brown it), top each slice with a tiny mint leaf, braised mustard seeds, and a slice of chili. Optionally serve with morel mushrooms and asparagus ribbons.

Serve!

Thoughts
We were all really impressed with the tender texture of the American lamb. Sous vide is seriously an awesome and foolproof way of preparing lamb. It comes out perfectly each time.

American lamb is definitely much milder than Australian or New Zealand lamb. For those that don't really like the gamey taste of lamb (like me), this lamb is actually tolerable, and, dare I say, enjoyable? Others who love that deep, grassy lamb-y flavor (like one of my guests Sunday evening), may be a bit disappointed. As my lamb-loving friend said, "it's sort of bland." On the other hand, her husband, who usually hates fat on meat, actually thought the fat on this lamb tasted decent.

So, it really depends on whether you like that distinct, gamey flavor of lamb. If not, you may actually want to give American lamb a try before writing off lamb completely.

Other facts: American lamb are also bigger than Australian or New Zealand lamb, so the cuts of meat are generally larger and meatier. A majority of American lamb is finished ("fattened") with grain, which contributes to a more tender and milder meat flavor. Contrast this with lamb from Lamb New Zealand and Australia, which is typically grass-fed (and thus gamier) and likely leaner.  On a recent trip to Whole Foods Market, I found lamb from both New Zealand and Maine.

Lamb Loin with Chili, Mint, and Mustard Seed
Serves 2-4 people
Inspired (but severely adapted) from Grant Achatz's Alinea

Lamb Loin Chop
4 lamb loin chops
salt and pepper to taste
1 T olive oil
4 mint leaves
1 tsp braised Mustard Seed (see below)

Cut lamb loin meat away from the bone. Set aside bones for other use (e.g., making stock). Tie together two loin sections into a cylinder with twine. Generously salt and pepper all sides of the lamb loin. Cook sous vide with olive oil at 55 °C (130 ° F) for two hours. Remove lamb loin from bags. Quickly sear the edges in a very hot cast iron pot for about 1 minute (or until a nice sear has been formed). Set aside.

Mint Leaves
Pick out smaller, unblemished leaves and keep in ice water for freshness.

Red Jalapenos
Any red pepper the right size will work, so pick peppers depending on your tolerance of heat. Thinly slice rings and set aside.

Braised Mustard Seeds
50g (1.8 oz) dried mustard seeds
50g water
5g white wine vinegar
3g sugar
1g Kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. Cover and let stand for an hour. Water will be completely absorbed and mustard seeds will be plump and tender.

Plating in All Together
Arrange each plate with the following components:
1 slice of lamb loin
1 mint leaf
1 slice of chili
1 dollop of braised mustard seed

Optionally decorate the plate with other components, such as butter sauteed morel mushrooms and asparagus ribbons.

Serve!


Disclaimer: I received free lamb from the American Lamb Board. 

Braised Lamb Osso Buco

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's 2013?

Reflecting back, this holiday "break" has been really different from most holiday breaks I've had in years past. One major difference is that for the first time since we've been married, Bryan and I did not go back to California to visit his parents.

We had spent three weeks traveling around Australia and New Zealand with them in November, and essentially we had used up almost all of our vacation days for that trip.

So this holiday season, we spent a few days in Ohio with my parents before coming back to Boston to just chill at home.

After traveling so much, it was actually really, really nice to finally be at home. I felt like I hadn't seen my kitchen in ages. It was fun to finally, finally, experiment in the kitchen again. I cooked, baked, and did all sorts of fun things that I haven't had time to do in months.

I can't wait to share some of those kitchen exploits with you in the next few weeks.

For today though, I just wanted to share with you the insanely delicious (and easy!) dish I made for our New Years Eve dinner.
 
I have a friend Peter who's really into wine. I may have told you about him before. He's been collecting wine for years and is always looking for fun and creative ways to showcase the wines.

This year for New Years Eve he decided he wanted to do a French Bordeaux tasting.

He prepared an excellent presentation about the wine region in general, and we had an education tasting, I guess you could say.

It was a potluck style dinner, and therefore each person was responsible for bringing some sort of dish that would pair with Bordeaux. More than once, Peter not-so-subtly hinted at me that I should really make a lamb dish.

"I know you don't like lamb," he wrote, "but it's a great application for the pressure cooker."

It's true. I don't love that game-y distinct flavor of lamb, though I often eat it since Bryan loves is to much. And I agree, lamb is probably one of the best meats with which to pair French Bordeaux.

So I buckled under pressure. We also happened to find these lovely lamb osso buco pieces at Costco , which helped seal the deal.

I decided to try out my new pressure cooker, a gift from Bryan not too long ago (more on that soon!).

This dish is pretty straightforward and doesn't take that long if you have a pressure cooker. If you don't have a pressure cooker, it's still easy, but just takes a couple more hours.

 Sear the osso buco pieces until they are nicely browned on all sides. Remove from the pot.

Cook your lovely mirepoix ingredients - carrots, celery, and onions plus some garlic until soft.

Deglaze with wine. We went with a very good but not insanely expensive Carbernet-Merlot blend (2009 Château de France, Pessac-Léognan WS 93).  According to Peter, you should never cook with a wine that you would not be willing to drink. The quality of the wine most certainly affects the flavor of your dish.

After about 40 minutes in the pressure cooker, the lamb becomes fall-off-the-bone tender. I removed the meat and further reduced the liquid until it was slightly thick, like a nice, hearty sauce.

When I tasted the "sauce", I felt that it needed something to round it out a bit, so I melted just 2 tablespoons of butter into the mix. Finally, in order to brighten it up just a bit, I added a splash of sweet balsamic vinegar (the good thick stuff you usually eat with strawberries!).

Serve with gremolata, which further brightens the dish up perfectly.

Enjoy!

The dish was fantastic. The flavors were deep and hearty, yet well balanced by the brightness of the gremolata. I'm sure the fact that I used really good wine added to the beautiful flavors of the dish.

I would absolutely make this again, especially since I can make the entire dish in an hour with a pressure cooker!

Pressure Cooker Braised Lamb Osso Buco
Serves 4

4 pieces lamb osso buco
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

2-3 cups wine (can be white, red, or a mix of both)
1-2 T tomato paste
2-3 cups chicken stock (or enough to cover the shanks in the pan)

2 bay leaves
1 sprig of rosemary
2 tablespoons butter
1 -2 tsp sweet balsamic vinegar (optional)

Make sure pressure cooker pot is big enough to comfortably fit all the osso buco.

Over medium-high heat in the pressure cooker pot, sear all sides of the lamb osso buco in olive oil until browned. Remove from the pot. To the oil in the pan, add the chopped onion, celery, carrots, and garlic and cook until browned and aromatic (~20 minutes). Add the tomato paste and mix well. Add wine, turn up the heat, and deglaze the pan. Let the mixture cook for about 5-10 minutes to boil off some of the alcohol. Add the osso buco pieces back in, and pour in the chicken broth and tomato paste. Make sure that the meat is covered (or at least mostly covered) in liquid. Add bay leaves and rosemary. Cover and cook at the "1 red ring" level (around 0.4 bar (5.8 psi)) for about 45 minutes.

Release the pressure and remove the meat.

Making the "demi-glace"
Reduce the remaining liquid on medium-high heat until it is almost sauce-like.  If you think the sauce needs to be rounded out or brightened up, add butter (to round out) and/or sweet balsamic vinegar (to brighten). I added both, but it may depend on the nature of your broth, wine, lamb etc.

Serve the osso bucco with the sauce, optionally topped with gremolata.

For starch, consider serving with saffron rice or roasted potatoes.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can also make this dish in the oven. Check out my post on oven-braised lamb shanks. If you would prefer to make it over the stove top, check out my Milanese Veal Osso Buco post which uses that method.

Here's to 2013!

Braised Lamb Shanks

After a freak snowstorm in October, we've actually be enjoying unusually warm weather throughout November and even into December.

In fact, we got so used to the warm weather that when temperatures actually reached the twenties a few days ago, everyone complained about how cold it was. Funny thing is, that's sort of normal for December here in Boston!

With the inevitable cold winter arriving, warm and hearty meals begin to look really, really inviting.

I've just recently started experimenting with using the oven more and learning some pretty traditional Western dishes I never made before. I guess most of my life I've cooked simple Asian stir fry, which almost never involves the oven and typically only requires quick cooking of meat.

I'm slowly discovering the amazing flavors that can come from simply cooking meat for long periods of time at low temperatures with certain, key "magic" ingredients.

I was not planning on making lamb shanks the night I cooked this. Instead, I had planned out a whole menu of Milanese osso bucco and oven roasted Brussels sprouts for a good friend (and relative!) who was coming over for dinner. After picking up 90% of my osso bucco ingredients, I stopped by the meat counter to pick up some veal shanks.

"I'm sorry, we're totally out."

????!!

I was running out of time. Why am I such a procrastinator?? The last time this happened, I tried making the same dish with pork shanks. Although the sauce was tasty, the pork came out way too dry.

The butcher looked me in the eye and say, "here are two beautiful lamb shanks. You can use the same ingredients from your osso bucco and try roasting the lamb shanks in the oven. Low and slow - it will taste fantastic."

Dubious but desperate, I called my friend to make sure she ate lamb. Thankfully, she said she liked lamb, so I took the plunge and bought the two shanks.

This dishes takes a lot of time to cook, but the actual prep time is not too bad. You need to spend about 20-30 minutes up front and then you just wait for several more hours. 

I started cooking on a Sunday afternoon around 2PM. Sear the shanks in a big pot until they are nice and browned. Set them aside.

Magic Ingredients
Add your mirepoix ingredients (onions, carrots, celery) plus garlic and cook them until they are nicely browned. Don't skimp on this step, as waiting for proper browning will give the final sauce a lot of flavor! Add wine and deglaze, letting a portion of the alcohol to boil off (5-10 minutes).
Add the shanks back in, cover with chicken broth, add rosemary and bay leaves, and bake in the oven, covered. The longer you cook, the more tender the meat will become. I would bake for atleast 2 hours, but if you can cook for even longer, it will taste even better. I ended up cooking it for 4-5 hours before we ate dinner close to 8PM! At that point, the sauce was gorgeously flavorful and the meat was literally falling off the bone.

I served the shank over saffron rice (made in a rice cooker!) with gremolata on top.

It was fantastic and so easy! Sure, it takes a long time, but the amount of active prep time is actually pretty low. You can even "cheat" and purchase a tub of pre-chopped mirepoix from Trader Joe's if you're short on time.

Enjoy!


Oven Braised Lamb Shanks
Serves 4

4 pieces lamb shank with bone
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 bay leaves
1 sprig of rosemary
2-3 cups wine (can be white, red, or a mix of both)
1-2 T tomato paste
2-3 cups chicken stock (or enough to cover the shanks in the pan)

Gremolata
Saffron Rice

Make sure to use a saute pan big enough to comfortably fit all the shanks because you will be stewing them in the pan later.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Over medium-high heat sear all sides of the lamb shanks in olive oil. Set aside the shanks. To the oil in the pan, add the chopped onion, celery, carrots, and garlic and cook until browned and aromatic (~20 minutes). Add the tomato paste and mix well. Add wine, turn up the heat, and deglaze the pan. Let the mixture cook for about 5-10 minutes to boil off some of the alcohol. Add the shanks back in, and pour in the chicken broth. Make sure that the shanks are covered (or at least mostly covered) in liquid. Add bay leaves and rosemary. Cover the pan and place it in the oven. After one hour, reduce the heat to 325 and cook uncovered for another 2 hours, checking every 45 minutes or so and flipping the shanks if necessary.

Serve over saffron rice with gremolata on top.