And now for something completely different: cooking, recipes, food, yummy things.

[misslj_author]

I can't be the only foodie here - I know I'm not, actually, looking at meredith_shayne, vayshti, corellian_sugar and angharad_gam to name a few of you! So, after watching tonight's episode of Australian Masterchef, here's a challenge!

Okay, we're not in a spiffy, hi-tech kitchen, and you don't have 45 minutes to prepare a dish to ~wow~ me (although wouldn't it be awesome if we were? I think so!), but tonight's elimination challenge got me thinking, and that's always dangerous. I thought, I wonder what my foodie flist would do with this, and what I would do this, so here is the resulting post.

The list below are your ingredients. You also have, in this theoretical Masterchef kitchen, olive oil, water, salt and pepper. All of these together make Gary Mehigan's amazing looking lamb tagine. (Although, I'll take mine without the okra and the fennel. Okra tastes like snot, to me. And fennel is just ick. Yuck.) However, you, intrepid foodies, must follow the following:

1. You can only use five ingredients from the items below. (Remember you have olive oil, water, salt and black pepper).
2. Pick those five, then tell me what you'd make.
3. Method of cooking what you'd make would be awesome, but this isn't the real Masterchef, obvs, so don't feel you have to!

Oh, and coriander is cilantro in the USA.

The list:

coriander seeds
cumin seeds
caraway seeds
fresh coriander
onion
garlic
preserved lemon quarters
olive oil
lamb
sumac
cinnamon sticks
saffron threads
sea salt flakes
chicken stock
blanched almonds
medjool dates, pitted
mace
okra
broad beans
yoghurt
fennel
pistachios
bay leaves
green olives
carraway seeds

What I would pick and make:

Fresh coriander
garlic
lamb
broad beans
yoghurt

Because I have olive oil, salt and pepper, I take cubes of lamb and season them with the salt and pepper then cook them until browned in the olive oil. At the same time, I cook the beans in water with a pinch of salt, half the bunch of fresh coriander, half a head of garlic, cloves peeled and left whole. When the beans are cooked through, I drain them, reserving the water, and add them to the pan with the meat, to cook and get a bit crispy. I also add another 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed. (I like garlic, okay? :D)

With the water, I take a quarter of a cup, making sure I get all the garlic and coriander, blitz it up in the food processor, then add it to the pan with the meat and beans. Simmer for twenty minutes on a low heat to reduce the liquid, then stir in the yoghurt, cook for another five minutes.

Remove from heat and serve with a few sprigs of fresh corriander. Ta-da! Lamb and Beans a la Star!

Now, your turn!

Comments

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

They knew about this in the middle ages too. There is a recipe by Martino (somewhat plagiarised but surprisingly improved upon by Platina) which is basically roast lamb stuffed with rosemary, garlic and olive oil all smashed up together. Then you take more garlic and rosemary and verjuice and egg yolks and as the lamb cooks you pour the juices into this sauce and then use it to baste the lamb. Then when the lamb is done you make the sauce into, well, a sauce and it is very, very, very good.

I once cooked for a feast where we planned for 80 and only 45 showed up. This was the only dish that didn't come back to the kitchen half eaten. This and the gnocchi actually....

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

Could you do that without the eggs? Bc it sounds delicious, just eggs and me are not friends.

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

I expect so. The eggs add a certain richness, and help to thicken the sauce, but there's no shortage of fatty substances from the lamb juices, so you could probably get away with using a bit of cornflour instead.

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

Excellent. My egg allergy has gotten worse over time, so I don't like to risk it too much. Yolk used to be not so much of a problem, just the whites, but now, it's yolk some of the time, and whites are worse than before.

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

Also, while I remember, do you have that recipe so I can have quantities? Ta!

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

1 leg of lamb
4 cloves of garlic
3 large sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 egg yolks
½ cup verjuice
olive oil
pinch saffron
salt, pepper
fresh parsley
Take 2 cloves of garlic and the leaves from 2 sprigs of rosemary and a little salt, and smash up in a mortar and pestle as finely as possible. Mix into a sludge (mmm....sludge) with olive oil. Pierce a hole along the bone of the leg and stuff the sludge inside. If there is any left over you can make other holes in the meat of the leg and stuff it in there. Smear the slurpy juices in the bottom of the mortar all over the outside of the lamb.

Smash up the remaining garlic, or crush, and put in a small saucepan with the verjuice, egg yolks and saffron. Mix well.

Roast the lamb at 200C (180C if you have fan-forced) for 20mins per 0.5kg + 20 mins (note this is for well-done - if you like it bloody do it for less). Every half an hour take the lamb out the oven and tip any juices into the sauce. Then baste the lamb liberally with the sauce using the remaining rosemary sprig.

When the lamb is done to your satisfaction let it rest while you finish the sauce: tip any remaining pan juices into the saucepan. Heat gently (not boiling) until it is a little thickened. You can add breadcrumbs or a couple of tablespoons of corn or rice flour to help with the thickening (note - mix the flour into a paste with a little water before whisking it through the sauce).

Serve it forth

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

Sweet zombie Merlin, that sounds delicious. I'll be trying that after my trip to Maggie Beers farm in Sept. Did you want me to grab any verjuice for you while I'm there?

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

Nah, that's cool. They have it at quite a few places in the Central Markets these days, so it's not hard to get hold of. Although I do miss the place in the markets where they sold it in 2l containers.

There's another 15th century Italian recipe - chicken in verjuice (although it's not really called that) which uses large quantities of verjuice. That's another yummy one. And very easy, so I might as well just tell you it :-)

Take whatever joints of chicken you will (drumsticks work as does Maryland if you want a _big_ piece). And some rashers of middle bacon (maybe half a rasher for every piece of maryland. Cut the bacon into large pieces and fry the chicken and bacon together (in a little olive oil if needed). The bacon can be cooked however you will, but the chicken only needs to be browned, not cooked through.

Put the chicken and bacon in a large pot and fill about 3/4 of the way up the chicken with verjuice. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 mins or until the chicken is cooked through. Add a handful of chopped fresh parsley towards the end, and you can, if you wish, add some pepper, ginger and cinnamon, but it is also perfectly good as is.

Generally you discard the liquid and just eat the meat, but you could also make a sauce of it with egg yolks, breadcrumbs or flour as above.


By the way, I totally forgot to mention that the fresh parsley in the last one is added at the end or used as a garnish.

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

I saw she had that in ye olde cask wine type containers. $22 for 2L.

Ooh yes, I've made this one a while back. I added taragon to it as well as the pepper and cinnamon and it was so good.

Nomomom!

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

wow, I've taken the pan drippings to make a sauce but never thought about egg yolks (and I'm not entirely sure what verjuice is).

gnocchi I miss being able to eat gnocchi. My grandma taught me to hand roll them as a kid

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

Verjuice is the juice of unripened grapes. It is tart and fruity and generally very awesome. It was very popular in the Middle Ages, but fell out of favour thereafter and people stopped making it. Very recently, however, it has made a bit of a comeback, and more and more places are making it again. It's still pretty hard to find unless you live near a wine producing region.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

as it turns out I have a winery right down the street. That said I'm not sure I could get this. Hmmm I did say I wanted to put in grape vines this year.

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

I did a bit of hunting, and this store seems to ship Maggie Beer's verjuice around the US. She's a local chef and her verjuice is really good quality and very tasty.

[angharad-gam.livejournal.com]

Um, that link is not to a shop :-)
But I understand some places in the Napa Valley make verjuice now too, which might be easier to get if you are in the US.

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

OH BLOODY HELL. hahahaha, oops. Wrong link. Trying again. THIS is the right link. *facepalm* I no lynk gud.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

interesting (the link goes to an archeologic article)

[misslj-author.livejournal.com]

LOL, I managed to bork that linking right good! THIS is the one I meant to post!

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

thank you.

and the weird thing is I had already read that article you posted a couple weeks ago