Indian Lamb Chops with Curried Cauliflower and Potatoes

If I had to pick a favorite cut and type of meat, it would have to be lamb shoulder chops. I know they are tougher and have more fat and gristle than their loftier cousin, the loin chop, but they have so much more flavor.

It is most likely because the shoulder chop was the only lamb we had when I was growing up. And it was a rare treat. My father took charge of the broiler when we had meat, and he liked his meat on the rare side, so the chops were always cooked perfectly medium-well, which is how I liked my meat back then. A little mint jelly on the side was the path to pure heaven.

After I left home, I still considered lamb chops as something special, something for a special occasion. The mint jelly morphed into dried mint sprinkled along with the salt, pepper and garlic powder before broiling. Why mess with a good thing? As with flank steak, I just couldn't imagine there could be a better flavor profile out there than the one which I had always used.

Until I ran across a recipe for lamb chops that involved cauliflower and curry powder. I like cauliflower, but I don't love it. I downright hated it as a child, and never really cooked with it, but I have liked it in restaurants so I always have an eye out for recipes that call for it. When I saw how easy the recipe looked I decided to give it a try.

And it was delicious. The curry powder punched up the flavor without interrupting the intense lamb taste that I love so much in the shoulder chops. The cauliflower was delicious in the curried sauce, and the mango chutney added a sweet heat that rounded out the overall effect. I thought it needed some starch, though, so I cooked up a batch of cilantro rice that was the perfect accompaniment.

I also forgot the green onions, but I did not miss them. They would have been good, but they were not a make-or-break ingredient.

As good as it was, though, I thought I could make it better. I liked it enough to make it again the next week, and I decided to add potatoes and peas to the cauliflower for more of a vegetable curry. It was quite delicious. I don't know when my lamb chops will be seeing mint again.

This is just as good with just the cauliflower, or with the added potatoes and peas. If you decide to make it with just the cauliflower, then steam the cauliflower for about 4 minutes and use 1/4 cup each of the chicken stock and the cream.

Home Cookin Chapter: Beef and Lamb

INDIAN LAMB CHOPS WITH CURRIED CAULIFLOWER AND POTATOES

2 cups small cauiflower florets
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas
2 lamb shoulder blade chops
2 teaspoons curry powder, divided
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons mango chutney
2 large green onions, chopped, divided

Steam potatoes until just starting to get tender, about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower and steam for another 4 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the cauliflower is tender, but still crisp. Transfer to a colander and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Season lamb with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle generously with some of the curry powder. Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium high heat. Place the chops in the skillet, seasoned side down, then
add the salt, pepper and curry powder to the other side of the chops. Cook the lamb to the preferred doneness, about 5 minutes per side for medium rare. Transfer the chops to a plate and cover with foil.

Drain excess oil from the skillet, leaving about a tablespoon. Add flour and remaining curry powder and whisk until the mixture is blended in with the oil, about 15 minutes. Add the chicken broth and the
cream. Add the mango chutney and cook until the mixture is thick, about 3 minutes, whisking constantly. Add the vegetables and half of the green onion, allow to heat through. Serve the vegetables with the lamb chops.

adapted from Bon Appetit, January 2010

Exported from Home Cookin 6.45 (www.mountain-software.com)

Asparagus and Piave Cheese Omelette

Summer is approaching and the Green Market moved back outdoors last week. That means lots of asparagus, rhubarb and spinach right now. Sometimes I will blanch the asparagus as soon as I get it home. I'll cook it for a scant two to three minutes so it's ready if I want to make something on the fly.

Like this asparagus and piave cheese omelette. I needed a quick breakfast, and I had eggs, the asparagus all ready to go, and some grated piave, of which up until a few months ago I had never heard. I was at the Lincoln Park Zoo Whole Foods waiting for the rest of my knitting group to arrive and I was wandering around the cheese section. I love to browse through there as much to see what interesting new cheese I can find as to see how long it takes for one of the two (sometimes more) hip young cheesemongers to acknowledge me. Ha ha, I am only joking - they never acknowledge me!

But they do occasionally have samples of cheese, which I am eager to taste. I don't know a lot about cheese, but I want to know more and I am always on the lookout to try new kinds. And one night I tried something that was quite tasty and I thought about buying some but decided to wait until the next week. And then promptly forgot what it was. I knew it started with a "P" and tasted like a milder, younger, creamier parmigiano reggiano but that was all I could remember. I knew I would recognize it if I saw it again, though, so I checked every week to see if I could find it, but they never had it on display again and there are too many cheeses there for it to be practical to search cheese by cheese.

A few weeks ago I got lucky. It was on sale so there was a bigger sign than usual. Piave Cheese. I snatched some up and brought it home with me. It was quite good on pasta and pizzas, and it disappeared quickly, except for a last little bit that I had pre-grated that wasn't really enough for a meal. But it was the perfect amount for an omelette yesterday morning.

I am pleased with how my omelettes are turning out these days. I still follow my basic technique, but I am better at sticking to my less-is-more theory and not filling them so full that they fall apart when I try to plate them.

I had half a shallot in the refrigerator that I chopped and sauteed with a little butter. I beat two eggs with a splash of water (and yes, a scant teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce - you don't want to use too much because it can give your omelette a brownish tinge that is most unattractive) and salt and pepper to taste and added them to the pan. When the eggs were just about set, I laid the asparagus and cheese over the middle, then folded over one side and let it sit for a minute or so. Then I grabbed the handle of the pan and slid the omelette onto the plate, turning it so that the third side folded over the already-folded part.

A delicious breakfast, to be sure.

Italian Chickpea Soup: When a Recipe Isn't Quite Working for You

I have been subscribing to Vegetarian Times magazine for several years now, and I am pretty sure I just renewed my subscription. This is somewhat peculiar, because I believe I have mentioned here before that I have yet to make a recipe from the magazine that worked out for me.

So why do I keep subscribing? A combination of factors, I guess. I want to support them, even though I am not a vegetarian. I think too many of their recipes try too hard to imitate meat dishes, and I am not interested in meat substitutes. I think even if I were a vegetarian I would avoid meat substitutes. It may be just me, but I think if I were to decide to stop eating meat again I would avoid dishes that were made to replicate meat dishes. Even though there's no actual meat in a Chik'n Patty, it would feel like cheating to me to eat one if I were not eating meat.

But then again, I do eat meat, so I know I am not in the best position to judge. What else keeps me loyal to this magazine? I support most of the peripheral ideas that the magazine represents: whole foods, organic foods, sustainability, and information on companies who are walking the walk or just talking the talk. So even though it is unlikely that I will ever give up meat, I don't eat it every day and I am always looking for healthy, hearty vegetarian fare.

But I think I will have to avoid the recipes in future.

This Italian Chickpea Soup is a good illustration of my dilemma. It was in the November 2009 issue, and was a reprint of a 1993 version, revised - "our 2009 taste buds wanted more spice," and is now available online.

Here is the original version. I have mentioned before that one of the issues I have with most of the recipes I have tried from the magazine is that they call for too much spice. And I am a person who believes that if a little bit of spice is nice, more spice is better. The thyme and oregano in this recipe completely overpowered the more subtle flavors of the chickpeas and the vegetable broth.

I did cut the recipe in half, but I also cut the spices in half so that shouldn't have been a problem. The other problem I had with this recipe is that the sweetness of the sweet potato also overpowered the chickpeas and the vegetable broth and competed with the thyme and oregano in my mouth, with an overall unpleasant result. The soup was also much thicker than I thought it would be, and I was not satisfied with it.

So I decided to play with it. I so enjoyed the Tunisian Soup with Chard and Egg Noddles that I made a few weeks ago that I bought a bag of vermicelli I found at the Middle East Baker and Grocery store that is right down the street from where I work. I thought adding the noddles might help tame the competing flavors of the sweet potato and the herbs.

I read that it is a good idea to toast the vermicelli before you cook it, so I put a little oil (a little too much as it turns out; I did use less than a tablespoon, but a teaspoon would have been perfect).

It didn't take long to start turning toasty brown. As it was browning I realized I was halfway toward making Rice-a-Roni - add rice, water and spices and there you are. I guess I'll be working on that soon. Who knew all of these "convenience" foods could be made so conveniently without opening a single box?

I added two more cups of water to the soup, both to thin it and to compensate for the 1/2 cup of vermicelli noodles I was adding. It did mellow out the flavors, but it was still a little too sweet. I added a splash of white wine vinegar and it did brighten up the pot, but it still seemed to be lacking a depth of flavor. Hmmmm. What else could I add? I didn't want to end up with one of those situations where I end up adding a little bit of everything in the kitchen and having it taste like mud. What could bring all of these flavors together?

DIY Worcestershire sauce to the rescue! I added a teaspoon, stirred it in, and that seemed to do the trick.

I don't know what it is about the recipes in Vegetarian Times that makes them not work for me. I will admit that I am a recipe adjuster - I rarely follow a recipe exactly as written. But I have also been cooking for a long time now and my instincts and knowledge are pretty good about what will work and what won't. I do not have this problem with recipes from most other sources, so I do not think that is the reason why I have not yet found a recipe from there that I liked. Perhaps the fact that I do eat meat makes these dishes taste different to me than they would to someone who does not eat meat. But I make plenty of vegetarian dishes from other sources, and again, I do not have this problem.

But I cannot help but wonder, is it me or is it them?

Baking Class: Buttermilk Pie (A Taste of Two Pies)

Buttermilk pie is popular in the South, especially in Texas. It is similar to chess pie; the main difference being that the vinegar is replaced with buttermilk. There are as many variations for this pie as well.

When I first decided to make buttermilk pie and started looking up recipes, one thing I saw over and over was how sweet it was. I even found a recipe that had a less sweet alternative. With all of those warnings, I decided it might be wise to start with the less sweet version.

To make the less sweet version, according to the recipe I chose, you simply add an egg and half a cup of buttermilk. Since nothing was removed, it was a lot of filling for my standard 9-inch pie crust. I might have cooked it a little too long because I was worried that it might not set, but it was also slightly curdled in texture, and not at all smooth like it should have been.

And it was not sweet. Hardly at all.

So I decided to bite the bullet and make the sweeter version. It came out smooth and silky. And it was sweet, yes. But not terribly sweet.

All I can say is this: Anyone who thinks that buttermilk pie is too sweet hasn't tasted chess pie. It's not nearly as sweet as that.

It's a good pie. The buttermilk adds a slightly tart creaminess to counterbalance the sweetness. I will most likely make it again.

But not nearly as often as I will make the tooth-achingly sweet chess pie.

BUTTERMILK PIE

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 unbaked 9-inch pate brisee

Preheat oven to 325 deg. F.

Put sugar and flour into a small bowl and whisk together.

Beat eggs lightly. Add the sugar and flour and the melted butter and mix well with a whisk or a large wooden spoon. Add the buttermilk and the vanilla and whisk it in.

Dust the unbaked pie shell with a scant teaspoon of flour. Pour the batter into the shell. Sprinkle another scant teaspoon of flour on top.

Bake for about one hour, until a knife inserted into the custard comes out clean.

adapted from Country Cooking, by the editors of Southern Living magazine (Galahad Books, 1974), as related by Natalie Y. Moore in this NPR article.

Swiss Chard and Gruyere Omelette

I don't have a lot of time to post these days, so I'll just say this:

Swiss chard and a touch of homemade Worcestershire sauce make a kick-ass omelette. I chopped up some of the stems and sauteed them before adding the eggs, into which I added a scant teaspoon of the Worcestershire. I had some great Swiss gruyere I bought for my potato garlic pizza so I added that as well.

It made a lovely breakfast to welcome me home from Austin on Monday morning..

Potato Garlic Pizza

A few weeks ago I decided to try my hand at a potato pizza. It was not terribly successful, but it had enough possibility for me to try again. Armed with the experience of what had not worked before, I was more successful the next time.

I did not use any sauce on the first try. Instead, I used a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil. I did not want to use a tomato sauce or a white sauce, and I thought (hoped) that the olive oil would be enough to make the pizza moist and succulent. Alas, it was not.

Also a few weeks ago, I bought a container of sour cream for some vague purpose about which I completely forget. And there it sat, alone and unoccupied, patiently waiting for me to notice that it was ready and available to be put to use. And ticking, every now and then, with the impending expiration date.

My pizza dough makes two pizzas. This last time I only had enough tomato sauce and mozzarella for one. What to do with that second round of dough? Was there anything I could do with the sour cream? I have been craving potato salad the past few weeks - maybe I could do something with potatoes and the sour cream.

I also had some huge purple-skinned heads of garlic I found at Whole Foods, and of which I had bought copious amounts. A good Swiss Gruyere and fresh dill would round it out perfectly.

And it did. I stretched out the dough and smoothed a thin layer of sour cream over it, then I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I sliced a Yukon gold potato as thin as I could without a mandoline (wish list for sure) and spread them over the sour cream in an even layer. I was going to overlap them a little for the visual effect, but I was worried they might not cook if I did that. I think I was right, so if you are going to try this I would not overlap the potato slices.

I sliced the garlic and sprinkled those over the potatoes, and then some finely-grated Gruyere, and then finally I sprinkled fresh dill over the whole thing. I cooked it in my usual 450 deg. F. oven for about 18 minutes.

Right off the bat it looked it much better than my first attempt at a potato pizza. It was still a little dry, though, so I put a dollop of sour cream on each slice and spread it out before I ate it. That did the trick, but I still need to find a way to make the pizza itself more moist. I don't know why I am shying away from a white sauce, but for whatever reason, I just don't want to use one.

I was a little leery of using too much sauce because I like my crust to be crispy, but I think I could maybe have used a little more. Next time I think I will spread another layer of sour cream over the potatoes before I add the cheese, garlic and dill.

Yes, I think that will do it. In the meantime, however, I will be thoroughly enjoying this potato garlic pizza.

And thinking about what other pizza varieties might be worth a try.

DIY Condiments #1: Worcestershire Sauce

Sometimes it pays to eavesdrop at the grocery store. Yesterday at Treasure Island as I was heading into the produce department I heard one of the produce ladies tell a customer, "Oh yes, honey, that pineapple is super sweet - I just cut that today and it is fabulous." (Ok, she may not have actually used the word "fabulous," but you get the idea.) They also happened to be on sale so I added one to my basket and chopped it up this morning. I just finished a bowl full of the freshest, sweetest pineapple I have tasted in a long time. Yes, it was fabulous.

Misreall and I have been having the hardest time finding a date that we can get together to sample and compare our Worcestershire sauces. I have been waiting to write about it so I could report on the comparisons, but I have decided to go ahead and post the process, before I forget what I did.

If you have ever thought about making your own Worcestershire sauce, I say go for it. If you haven't ever thought about making your own Worcestershire sauce, I still say GO FOR IT! This is the freshest, most flavorful, spiciest (without heat), magical elixir of flavor I have come across in a long, long time. And it's not hard to make.

It does, however, use a lot of ingredients. To my delight, I already had most of them in my pantry, but I did have to make a special trip for a few of these goodies. I have several varieties of dried peppers, but I did not have chilies de arbol. I also needed anchovies, molasses, green cardamom pods, fresh ginger, and star anise.

Actually, I didn't need the star anise, but that's another story. I was also looking at ketchup recipes, some of which do call for star anise, so I got it in my head that I needed some. Turns out I didn't, but I am now prepared for the ketchup phase of this project. Unfortunately, I didn't realize I didn't need it until after I took this photo, so there the star anise will sit through eternity, hopelessly aware that it does not belong, trying desperately to be as invisible as the jar in which it comes, thinking "please don't look at me. Look at the molasses - yeah! - and the onion - see how beautifully round it is! Just pretend like I'm not here, ok?" What you don't see here is the sugar, which for some reason I forgot to bring out until I needed it. Hmmm, and now that I am looking more closely, I see that I left out the garlic as well.

Ok, so it's not perfect. But you get the idea - lots of ingredients, some everyday, some a little more exotic. But nothing I could not find with relative ease.

Most of the ingredients go right into the pot. Be sure to use a pot with a heavy bottom. I used my go-to 3-quart reinforced bottom saucepan, and it worked just fine.

At this point, it's just a mishmash of ingredients and doesn't look like much. It smells mostly of the vinegar, too, which is not the most pleasant smell in the world.



After it has been simmering for a few minutes, however, the ingredients begin to come together and the most heavenly, sharp-sweet-tart-sour aroma slowly wafts out of the saucepan.

Before long, the smell has taken over your kitchen. It was about this time that I started having these vague thoughts of steak.



I am glad that I had already experimented with caramel sauce not too long ago, so I was not as intimidated as I might have been at the thought of melting the sugar. I am still just a little bit skeptical when I start with that pot of sugar that it is really going to melt.

You also want to use a heavy-bottomed pan to melt the sugar. If it is too thin, it is more likely that you will burn the sugar. It's one of those things that goes from golden brown to burnt beyond recognition quickly.

You can see here that the sugar has started to clump together in places. These lumps get hard and it doesn't look like they are going to melt, but if you are patient and just keep stirring everything around gently, they will. At this point, you will also start to see a little bit of liquid below all that sugar. Those hard lumps will slowly melt into that liquid as you stir it all together.



At this time, you want to be especially vigilant, because this is where it can go from done to burned in a heartbeat.

This is what it should look like when it's ready. The sugar has melted into a pool of amber. You want to remove it from the heat before that amber turns too dark.




Next you pour the sugar into the saucepan where all of the other ingredients are simmering.

The recipe should really come with a warning at this point. That sugar is so hot that it will make the rest of the ingredients start to boil as soon as the liquid sugar hits it. It will bubble up and make a fierce noise, so don't be startled. Just hang on and in a minute or two it will have subsided back into a nice simmer.

By this time, all of the ingredients have come together and the sugar fuses them into one big giant spectacular splendiferous aroma that fills all of your senses. If you are anything like me, you will be craving a steak by this time. Too bad you won't be tasting the sauce for a few weeks.

Here is the sauce fresh out of the saucepan and ready to go into the refrigerator for three weeks.

Another warning that I think should be included in this recipe is that you need a fairly large jar for the sauce with all of the ingredients still in it. I had two false starts before I finally found enough room in my old dill pickle jar. I wish I could remember exactly how big it is, but I do know it's bigger than a quart - maybe one-and-a-half quarts. There's a lot of stuff in there that has to be strained out before you reach the 2 cups, so I recommend you start with the biggest jar you have.

I put the jar all the way in the back of the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and let it stay there for the required three weeks. It was a long three weeks, that I can tell you.

Finally, the three weeks had passed and it was time to strain the sauce and taste it. Even though I hadn't disturbed the jar at all, the seal was hard to break, and for a little while I actually had some concern that I would not be able to get the jar open. But with a little pushing and straining, and tapping the lid against the floor, I finally got the lid released and the jar opened.



Here all of those lovely spices and chilies and mustard seeds and onion and garlic and anchovy and general Worcestershire-y goodness. Oh, and that's the sauce down there in the bottom of the pan. True to the recipe's word, I ended up with about 2 cups worth.

This is a truly marvelous sauce, and it really does not take that long to make at all. And once you buy the ingredients for the first batch, you have most of what you need on hand for the next batch as well, and the one after that. And you will be making more batches, of that I can assure you. It is spicy and fresh and adds a burst of flavor to everything it touches, from soups to stews to sauces, salad dressing, eggs, pimento cheese, you name it.

I used the recipe I found in Saveur Magazine #117. I don't believe I would change a thing. You can find the recipe here. Go make yourself some. You won't be sorry.

Cooking on a Budget: Tunisian Soup with Chard and Egg Noodles

Even though I am now working full time, I am still on a budget and trying to be as frugal as possible in the kitchen. And while I have been managing to stay within my budget reasonably well, I haven't been breaking down many recipes in terms of cost. I thought it might be time to rectify the situation.

I happened to have some Swiss chard in the refrigerator when I came across this recipe I had pulled out of Gourmet early last year. I also had pretty much all of the rest of the ingredients as well, so I decided to make it.

I did make a few changes. I had already prepped the Swiss chard, for a reason I can now no longer remember, and discarded the stems and ribs, so I simply left them out. I did not have any harissa, and from all of the reviews I read when I looked up the recipe online, it's best home made, so I decided to use the Tabasco sauce I have on hand to make Ten Minute Black Beans.

And finally, I forgot to get the thin noodles when I was at the grocery store, but I did have half a package of Bechtel's broad noodles in the pantry. I put some in a plastic bag and gave it some whacks with the rolling pin to break them up. I didn't exactly get thin noodles, but they did the trick.

This soup may not look like much, but it has a surprising clarity of flavor. The chard gives the soup a sweetness that is countered by the lemon juice. The online reviews all agreed that without the harissa, the soup was tasteless. I don't know that I would agree, but the Tabasco sauce did elevate it to a whole new level. I think I would like to make some harissa and see how that would be.

One thing I would strongly recommend is that you do toast the whole cumin seeds and then grind them yourself, and do not use store-bought ground cumin. The soup definitely benefits from the toasted flavor. The smokiness of the store-bought ground would overpower the other flavors rather than enhance them.

This soup is light and fresh, and full of flavor. It is delicate enough to serve as a meal starter, but sturdy enough to hold up as the main course all on its own. And at $1.65 a serving, it's a delicious bargain.

TOTAL COST: $ 9.89
Cost per Serving: $ 1.65

Home Cookin Chapter: Soups and Stews

TUNISIAN SOUP WITH CHARD AND EGG NOODLES

6 servings

1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 pound Swiss chard, stems and center ribs chopped and leaves coarsely chopped (stems and leaves divided)
1 medium red onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 quarts chicken or vegetable broth
2 tsp harissa or other hot sauce, or to taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 ounces fine egg noodles (about 1-1/2 cups)
Salt and pepper to taste

Toast the cumin in a small cast iron skillet over medium heat until it is dark brown and aromatic. Stir it frequently and watch carefully so you don't burn it. Remove from the heat, let the seeds cool, and then using a spice grinder or the back of a spoon, grind the seeds.

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add chard stems, onion, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, for about 2 more minutes.

Add the broth, hot sauce, and lemon juice. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the chard leaves, chickpeas, and noodles. Adjust seasonings to taste. Cover and let simmer until tender, about 7 minutes.

adapted from Gourmet Magazine, February 2009

Exported from Home Cookin 6.45 (www.mountain-software.com)

Happy Tax Day

Ugggh. Why do I always wait until the last possible moment to do my taxes? It isn't even like they're hard or anything, I just can't seem to do them until the night before they're due. Along with the rest of the state of Illinois, apparently. It only took me about fifteen minutes to file, but three hours to get into the site.

I got an early start on my federal taxes, though. I did those the night before.

I expect to be back to my regular food post schedule next week.