Adam Braised a Not-So-Little Lamb
Plus: Leftover Lamb Ragu, Grilled Cheese of Many Cheeses, The Best Pancakes I've Ever Tasted.
Hey everyone,
Before we get to today’s newsletter, I want to give you a little taste of my novel, Food Person, coming out in just a month. Here’s me reading from the first chapter! (Just click to see me come to life…)
If you enjoyed that, there’s plenty more where that came from. Click the button to pre-order… every pre-order helps show interest in the book, so if you’re thinking of buying, please do it now. I’d really appreciate it.
Now let’s talk lamb….
I vividly remember the first time that I cooked lamb shoulder. It was 2001, I was in my first year of law school (yes, I accidentally went to law school), living in Post Briarcliff in Atlanta (a cute little community near Emory, where I was a student) and in my very early experimental phase of learning how to cook. I’d made chili from The Betty Crocker Cookbook. I’d made tomato sauce from The Babbo cookbook. I’d made brownies from a box and a few frozen California Pizza Kitchen pizzas.
Then one day I saw Mario Batali (before his fall from grace) braise a lamb shoulder on Molto Mario on The Food Network. I decided to give it a try myself: browning the tough cut of meat, adding onions, carrots, celery, deglazing with white wine, and adding fresh thyme.
I’d never smelled or tasted anything so good in my life. It was incredible. Lamb shoulder has this incredible quality that’s hard to define. It’s different that beef in that there’s a certain funk or gaminess that not everyone loves (but I do) and then there’s the sumptuous way that it breaks apart and becomes so soft you can eat it with a spoon.
So when the author of the most Tony-nominated play in history, David Adjmi, was coming over for dinner on Friday night, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. David’s been reading my stuff since way before he wrote Stereophonic (which we saw twice, we loved it so much, and then it was nominated for a record 13 Tony awards!). It was such a thrill to finally have him in my kitchen; especially since we both had so much to talk about (we both went to school for playwriting):
The lamb that I made was from April Bloomfield’s A Girl and Her Pig, one of my favorite cookbooks. (Here’s the recipe on a blog.) It involves the usual process of browning the giant, five-pound, bone-in lamb shoulder on all sides for a good fifteen minutes until it’s deep golden brown all over (the hardest part; especially when you set off the smoke alarm and your dog starts quivering):
The special part comes with what you add next: first carrots, then celery, onion, and garlic; then tomatoes, anchovies, chopped rosemary, and orange and lemon peel; and finally, white wine.
Once everything’s in the pot, you braise it in the oven for almost four hours. It makes everything smell oh-so-good and it’s also a good transitional winter-to-spring dish because lamb is a very springy thing to eat. Would you believe that it was so delicious, I forgot to take a picture of the final, plated dish? Well it’s true.
The best part of the recipe?
The next day, April suggests you shred the leftover lamb and add it to the leftover sauce to make a ragu. It really is that easy. Plus, by refrigerating over night, it’s a cinch to get rid of the excess fat (which solidifies on the top; you just lift it off with a spoon). Here’s the leftover lamb ragu tossed with penne rigate:
Pecorino on top is the perfect cheese because it has a similar funk.
Speaking of cheese, on Sunday, Craig was inspired to take the milk bread that we bought at the farmer’s market and to combine it with all of the leftover cheeses from our dinner parties:
Don’t ask what those cheeses are: we just had them in our fridge.
I caramelized some onions and Craig added those to the bread along with grainy mustard (a Nancy Silverton move) and then thin slices of all those cheeses. Craig’s signature technique is to cook the grilled cheese with butter on medium-low heat with a cover over everything so the cheese has time to melt before the bread gets too dark:
The resulting grilled cheese was definitely punchy: each bite was a surprise because Craig layered the cheeses in different spots. It was worth the 10,000 calories this sandwich probably had in it.
Finally, on Saturday we met our friends Joseph, J.S., and their friend Whitney (who owns Chez Foushee in Richmond) at Chez Ma Tante in Greenpoint for their famous brunch.
What makes the brunch at Chez Ma Tante so famous? One word: pancakes. Frequently cited as the best pancakes in the city.
And you know what? They are. They really, really are.
Those edges? That crusty top? The fluffy interior? The height, the scale!
My only mistake was forgetting that my brunch-mates were vegan (and one has celiac) so nobody else except for Craig could share these with me, and Craig doesn’t really like pancakes. So I guess it wasn’t a mistake in the sense that I got to eat the majority of these myself! To quote Joni Mitchell: “No regrets, Coyote.”
Hey, let’s look at some links:
Ella Emhoff’s Grub Street Diet (I like her; Grub Street);
The Perfect Order at Brooklyn’s New Scandinavian Bistro (Eater NY);
A Cheesy Traybake and a Crisp Salad… More Butter Beans! (The Guardian).
That’s all for today, folks!
See you back here on Thursday….
Your pal,
Adam
Joseph!!