What's cooking?

For New Year's dinner with one daughter and family we hat baked ham, sweet potatoes, and green beans. It was kind of throw together at the last minute. We washed it down with a Tobin James Fatboy Zinfandel which is now down from 16% alky. Everyone was hoppy.

[Robin Garr]

Mary has a cold and wants bland food. I'm okay with "delicate." I'm making a simple stir-fry of chicken and broccoli with onions and lots of healthy ginger and garlic.

[Jenise]

Hope Mary feels better soon.

We had rack of lamb last night with parslied fingerling potatoes after a romaine and red onion salad. Accompanied by a 1999 Gloria from St. Julien, got 2011 off to a nice start.

Good wishes to Mary for a fast recovery.
Tonight is seafood spaghetti with shrimp, sea scallops, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice and zest, parsley...one of our very favorite pasta recipes. A salad of winter greens from our garden, and some sort of vinaigrette, using a new evoo and vinegar.

[Robin Garr]

Does a classic omelet made in the French style still count as "breakfast for dinner" if it is served at the evening meal? I'm planning a simple one with a locavore base of Chelsea's free-range eggs and Kenny Mattingly's Kentucky aged farmhouse cheddar.

[Jenise]

It's time for my taco fix! But I'm being dietic about it: ground turkey and brown rice filling with a pile of cold lettuce "shells" that we scoop and eat while watching a movie, hold the cheese.

Tonight is a pork shoulder rubbed with warm spices, and placed in a crockpot on top of onions, leeks and garlic. A mixture of apple cider vinegar, lime juice and zest, Knorr's Caldo de Pollo, and fire roasted diced tomatoes will be poured over. It will cook on low about 8 to 10 hours. I'm also doing black valentine beans in garlic and onion, with assorted spices and herbs, roasting carrots until they are nicely caramelized.

[Jenise]

A friend of ours in the 'hood smashed up her leg quite badly a month ago and to help out I've been cooking meals for the four of us at her house (my house has too many elevations for a wheel chair) from time to time. Tonight will be one of those: roasted pork loin in a garlic/lemon/thyme sauce on rice with a bibb lettuce and chive salad in a classic Dijon vinaigrette.

First time I've entered this thread but wanted to share what will soon be this evening's meal.

I have been a devotee of choucroute garni since I first sampled it, not in Alsace but at Paris' Brasserie Lipp. Since that first long ago time, I have sought and gained enormous pleasure from this dish in many restaurants in Alsace

Bravo, Daniel. That is indeed an amazing dish. So home-y and yet it can be made so elegant at service. I'm impressed with the pork products you have available to you there--somehow, I didn't expect pork to be available in Israel given both Jewish and Arab rejection of it. I make it here at least once each winter and make it similarly, though I include smoked pork hocks which a local ham producer does a masterful job of.

But if you wanted to avoid pork, I would think you could make a interesting version of Choucroute using goose, beef or lamb sausages, and corned beef.

We had a ham loaf made with the remains of our New Year's ham, and hamburger. Also had a great succatash made with corn, lima, roasted red pepper, EVOO, goose stock, and many seasonings. For leftovers of the ham loaf methinks I'll whip up a Cumberland sauce.

Linguini with a white clam sauce. Needed to use up some mascarpone left over from the dessert buffet tiramisu. Simple spinach salad with pomegranate seeds, green onion and a pomegranate molasses dressing.

[Jenise]

Tonight's my dinner party for the Woodward Canyon vertical. I spread the cooking out over four days so I didn't overload. Here's the menu:

Champagne and passed appetizer of lox-wrapped asparagus with mustard sauce
First Course: marinated mushroom and arugula salad on capicolla carpaccio, homemade crusty wheat loaf, 96 and 95 WC
Second course: oxtail and foie gras terrine, home-pickled red pearl onions and chiogga beets, 94 and 93 WC
Third course: ratatouille crepes, 92 and 91 WC
Fourth course: roast filet mignon with green peppercorn sauce, roquefort-potato gratin, 90 and 89 WC
Dessert: NY style cheesecake with raspberry-red jalapeno sauce

Semi homemade pizza and a dark ale.

Boneless leg of lamb marinated in Burgundy wine and peppercorns. Risotto made in my rice cooker, with shallots, butter, artichoke hearts, winter chervil from my garden, chicken stock(home made), and Parmesan Reggiano. Roasted asparagus spears coated in evoo and shallot salt, freshly ground pepper when finished. Then a touch of truffle butter.

Punjabi chicken with fenugreek leaves.

-Paul W.

I prepard a 6 lb leg of lamb roast, purchased from costco, and prepared it to medium doneness but it was SO gamey in flavor it was inedible, as far as my wife and I are concerned, so we prepared it and assigned it as cat food. Shame. Anyone else ever find this?

Drew

I prepard a 6 lb leg of lamb roast, purchased from costco, and prepared it to medium doneness but it was SO gamey in flavor it was inedible, as far as my wife and I are concerned, so we prepared it and assigned it as cat food. Shame. Anyone else ever find this?

Drew

Perhaps making it into a strong curry would have covered up the gameyness.

Veal breast : browned and braised in sauteed shallots, roasted red pepper, paprika, bay leaf, dry vermouth. Served with a red wine from Georgia [ the country ]...a great match

I prepard a 6 lb leg of lamb roast, purchased from costco, and prepared it to medium doneness but it was SO gamey in flavor it was inedible, as far as my wife and I are concerned, so we prepared it and assigned it as cat food. Shame. Anyone else ever find this?

Drew

Drew,
Was the lamb American or imported fro NZ/Australia? I don't notice much difference, then again I can tolerate "stinky Rhones" that smell like horse heiney, but many report the imported lamb is much gamier than American lamb. Is this lamb terroir?
'Winger

I believe it was NZ/Australia lamb and we've purchased it many times from Costco. Next time I'm in the club I'll talk to the butcher, fwiw. We eat a lot of local harvested game and have rarely noticed this type of gamey flavor. Now, having said that, several years ago my wife and I traveled to the Bavarian Inn at Shepardstown, W. Virginia. Wonderful Inn overlooking a hairpin turn of the Potomac River. They have a ?star restaurant at the Inn that specializes in game recipes. Wild boar, venison, game birds as well as German dishes. On this occasion I ordered the venison which was so over the top gamey that I couldn't eat it. The waiter told me that the venison was a European import. One of our local grocery chains often offers whole filet mignon at crazy pricing ($4 to $5 per lb) so I picked one up and read on the package that it was Australian beef and it too was very gamey.

Drew

I believe it was NZ/Australia lamb and we've purchased it many times from Costco. Next time I'm in the club I'll talk to the butcher, fwiw.

Sorry to hear about your trouble with gaminess. I have heard that bay leaves help to lessen the gaminess of lamb and venison; perhaps worth a try?

[Robin Garr]

Sorry to hear about your trouble with gaminess. I have heard that bay leaves help to lessen the gaminess of lamb and venison; perhaps worth a try?

Fresh rosemary sprigs and plenty of 'em also seem to work nicely to balance, if not hide, lamb flavors. I think the age of the "lamb" or young sheep used in the product may be an unpredictable variable. We're lucky to live near a fairly significant lamb-producing area (Western Kentucky), and I find that local lamb can vary from very, very mild to "assertive." Sometimes the funky flavor seems concentrated in the fat, and removing much of the visible fat before cooking can help.

A lot of cookbooks also say that there's sometimes a "gland" in the lamb leg that imparts the gamey/musky flavor and that can be removed before cooking, but frankly, we eat a lot of lamb and I've never been able to identify such a gland. I wonder if anybody else can contribute info on this.

We eat our fair share of lamb, as well. Chops, boneless and bone-in legs and I've never experienced that gamey taste in it or beef.
What's cooking here tonight is freshly ground chicken breast burgers, with fresh bread crumbs, thyme, lemon juice and zest, grilled. Served in ciabatta buns, with balsamic glazed onion rings, red leaf lettuce and sliced tomatoes. I also made a potato salad with Yukon Gold potatoes, celery, kalamata olives, red onion, green onion, fresh parsley and garlic. I tossed it with an Italian dressing.

I prepard a 6 lb leg of lamb roast, purchased from costco, and prepared it to medium doneness but it was SO gamey in flavor it was inedible, as far as my wife and I are concerned, so we prepared it and assigned it as cat food. Shame. Anyone else ever find this?

Drew

I did a quick Google and found this from Cooks Illustrated:
"I have been mulling the problem and realized this was a common proble with American lamb legs many years ago. The cause was the popliteal gland in the interior of the shank. I was taught how to remove the gland in the 1960's but no longer see the gland or have the problems with American or Australian lamb. New Zealand Beef and Lamb mentions the gland and provides instructions for removal on their website.

New Zealand Beef and Lamb "Trim away any fat pockets on the boned side, including the greyish popliteal gland in the silverside/shank region, but leave a thin fat cover on the skin side."