Sunday 17 August
We invited the Dinner Club (Julie,
Kathy, and Russel) over to help celebrate our last week of relative
freedom.
We appetized with the ever-popular
caponata on crackers, plus olives, tiny yellow pear and black cherry tomatoes,
and almonds. With this we served a
pitcher of Chimayo cocktails in our blue glass Mexican goblets frosted with Demarara sugar,
just to show that we too can be cocktail mavens sometimes.
Then we sat down at the table for the
weeklong stew made from the lamb shoulder we bought on Saturday, defrosted
in the fridge over the weekend (keeping the bloody mess in a vedge drawer), Holt
butchered on Sunday night, we stewed on Wednesday, and added final touches to
today. And it was appropriately special,
a Bene Israel of India recipe from Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food.
Lamb with Red Chilies and Tamarind
2 lbs. sliced onions
olive oil
4 lbs. lamb, trimmed of some but
not all fat, cut into cubes
6-10 large cloves of garlic,
crushed
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsps. ground coriander
3 tsps. ground cinnamon
2 tsps. ground cloves
8 small dried whole red chiles
(from Ed's garden, I dried them last year)
3 lbs. tiny potatoes - we used
purple, red, and white fingerlings
8 oz. coconut cream (we used the
top of a settled can of coconut milk)
3 Tbsp. tamarind paste
3 Tbsp. sugar
Fry the onions in oil over low
heat, keeping lid on and stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, until soft and
golden.
Fry the lamb in another pan in
more oil, in batches, turning so the cubes are separate and browned on all
sides.
Add the garlic, cumin and
coriander to the onions and stir well, then add the cinnamon and cloves and
stir. Add the onions to the meat, or
vice versa, and pour in water to just cover.
Add chiles.
Cover the pot, and keep on a low
flame, simmering (Claudia brings it to a boil and skims off scum, but if you
bring it to the boil very slowly and gently, you don't get any scum.) Cook for about 2 hours or until the lamb is
very tender.
Remove the chiles; refrigerate
(that was Wednesday).
This is where we started earlier
today: add the potatoes, coconut cream, tamarind, and sugar, plus water to
cover, and simmer another 30-40 minutes, until potatoes are tender. If you want more sauce, keep water topped up.
This had a wonderful sour smack of
tamarind, and the lamb was fork-tender. It wouldn't have done for a really hot summer night, but luckily the weather has been unusually temperate for Cincinnati.
Holt also made a wreath of olive oil bread
(blue ribbon, Hamilton County Fair, ca. 1994) to sop up the sauce. The potatoes acted as a side vegetable, and
to lighten the palate afterwards, we made a big bowl of Kathy's own napa cabbage slaw with blue cheese.
Holt also got baking for dessert: five
cute canoes made of Paule Caillat's nutty-tasting tart crust from the Saveur 100.
Brown Butter Tart Crust
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed
3 tbsp. water
1 tbsp. canola oil
1 tbsp. sugar
⅛ tsp. kosher salt
1 cup flour
Heat oven to 400°. Stir butter,
water, oil, sugar, and salt in a heatproof bowl; bake until butter is bubbling
and lightly brown at edges, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and stir in
flour until dough comes together. Press dough into bottom and up sides of five
4-inch tart pans, or one large 9-inch tart (though Holt didn't quite have
enough for all six of the canoe-shaped tart pans David Warda gave him). Using a
fork, prick dough all over (Holt found it really bubbled up if you didn't do
this thoroughly). Bake until cooked through, 10–12 minutes; let cool.
Holt filled the canoes with
homemade lemon curd and berries, both black- and rasp- , plus straw- on the
side.
Everyone enjoyed the food, and we
had a wonderful time preparing it all - though next time we'll get the simple
lamb leg rather than doing this whole butchering project.
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