Matzo Brei with Lox, Eggs, and Onions

Plus: Lamb Chops, An Apple Galette, and an Accidental RuPaul Brunch.

Hey everyone,

Did you grow up eating lox, eggs, and onions? And/or did you grow up eating matzo brei? If you said no to both questions, you’re probably not Jewish! And that’s okay. We accept all faiths, religions, and identities at The Amateur Gourmet Newsletter headquarters.

The reason that I ask is that I just posted about a delightful brunch that I whipped up from my own imagination this weekend: Matzo Brei with Lox, Eggs, and Onions.

The impetus for the dish was that I had a friend coming over for brunch and I ordered way too much matzo for another project I was working on and I was thinking: “How can I use that matzo up during brunch?” And that’s when this idea came to me.

CLICK HERE to read the recipe and all of the funny stuff that I share about my grandmother, onions, Judaism, and all of that mishegoss.

On Thursday, last week, Craig’s parents Steve and Julee, plus his Aunt Liz and Uncle Chris came over for dinner.

When I asked Craig’s dad Steve if he had any special requests a few nights earlier, he said: “Lamb chops!” And since he’s hosted us countless times up in Bellingham, Washington — serving us everything from Prime Rib to the World’s Best Crab Cakes — I felt happy to oblige.

Once again, I used the David Tanis recipe that I wrote about here.

It’s a brilliant combination of Dijon, anchovies, garlic, and olive oil that get pulverized together (I used a small blender), slathered all over the meat, sprinkled with chopped fresh rosemary, and then roasted in a 400 degree oven until a thermometer reads 125 for medium-rare.

As a bonus, you parboil potatoes that go underneath the lamb while it roasts and take in all of that garlicky, anchovyish, lamby wonderfulness as the lamb chops cook.

The only snag I hit was the quantity of lamb that I was trying to roast at once: three racks in a pan that wasn’t really big enough to hold them. So the lamb fat dripped on to the bottom of the oven, sending out lots of smoke, and setting off the smoke detector.

But the final product was worth it! Perfectly medium-rare. (And for those who liked it cooked more, I seared the rare lamb very quickly in a cast-iron skillet… getting some color on all sides.)

For dessert, I served up an apple galette from a recipe by Ella Quittner on Food52.

I loved this recipe so much, especially because you make the pie dough in a large bowl in a way that I’d never done pie dough before. Yes, I’ve done the method where you pinch the butter and flour together with your fingers, add the cold water, and stir it until it looks like coarse meal… but usually, at that point, you dump it out on to a board and have to bring the shaggy mess together with a pastry scraper. In this recipe, you work the dough together in the bowl with your hands until it forms a ball and then you wrap that in plastic and chill for two hours.

For me, that was a game-changer. The fact that it’s a ball makes it so much easier to flatten into a disc and, subsequently, roll out. And because I worked fast and kept everything super cold (and maybe because I was using Kerrygold butter which has more butterfat), the dough was extra flaky. My pie-expert in-laws complimented the crust in particular.

Finally, on Saturday, Craig and I went downtown to The Last Bookstore (where I bought the Shaya Cookbook on sale for $8) and, afterwards, we wandered over to the Ace Hotel to have brunch.

That was my egg sandwich. Pretty good! There was kale and harissa and egg on a ciabatta roll.

But what made the lunch memorable was all of the drag queens that we saw walking past the window. At first, we were like “what’s going on?” but then we saw the marquee at the Ace Hotel Theater next door…

The Rupaul’s Drag Race finale was shooting at five o’clock that very afternoon! Jinx Monsoon was apparently in the lobby when we left. If you’re a Drag Race fan, you’ll understand the significance of our proximity to such greatness.

Now for today’s links:

• These bean and vegetable burritos look good enough to make me want to make a burrito at home (Smitten Kitchen);

• David Lebovitz writes about his trip to California… including the dinner he ate at Chez Amateur Gourmet! (The David Lebovitz Newsletter);

• Barbara Lynch withheld tips from employees? Not cool, Barbara Lynch. (I’d been a fan since I read her memoir, which I highly recommend.) (Eater Boston);

• Bookmarked Eric Kim’s Gochujang Buttered Noodles because butter. And garlic. And gochujang. And pasta. (NYT).

In case you’re not a paid subscriber, I had a giant breakthrough on Operation Muffin Stud (the paid subscriber-only daily “diet” dispatch) last week that almost unraveled the whole operation. Find out why I decided to stop weighing myself and redefine my goals by becoming a paid subscriber and then signing up on the OMS page.

That’s all for today, folks!

See you back here on Thursday….

Your pal,
Adam