All posts tagged lamb

By Jessica | March 17, 2010 | Dinner Parties, Main Courses, Projects | No comments

Look. I’m sick of all these bloody stereotypes of Irish people getting drunk and eating potatoes, throwing up and pissing green beer and shit. That’s why I’m trying to affirm a different association this St Patrick’s Day. Once that includes cheap, hardy, corned food and Guinness. And Jameson. And car bombs… And limericks. Shut up.

I made a corned beef, which let me let you know, is pickled beef brisket, boiled in water cause guess why. Back in the day, they’d slaughter some cows right?, and preserve what they couldn’t eat in a salty bath, and boil the last of the shit in March (St Patty’s Day), right in time for Lent, when there was no meat anyway. Goddamn, religion is so conveniently explained.

Ok, the other shit Ima put on you is a little local establishment I like to get my rocks off to and that’s Los Paisanos. Cause not that I told any of my guests that night, but Los was brining the beef for days before my paws got ahold of the slab. Let me proceed with the St Patrick’s Day menu…

Menu: Corned Beef, Red Cabbage Slaw, Individual Shepards Pie, Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Frosting, Car Bombs. Check it:

Corned Beef: A) It turns red all on its own. B) Bought 5 pounds of meat. C) Got like 2 pounds of meat and 2 pounds of fat. Look at them blobs!

Individual Shepard’s Pies: A) I didn’t do anything sexy here, just wanted the ol school shit. B) Except for the middle layer of kale that’s not usually in a Shepard’s or Cottage Pie. C) Shepard’s Pie is with lamb, Cottage Pie is with beef.

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey’s Frosting: A) I used an Epicurious recipe, go there, but lose the baking soda for a denser, more brownie like thingy. B) Frosting is 8 oz of soft cream cheese, a cup of confectioners sugar and 2 big glugs of Baileys. C) B dropped my phone.

*Craic, pronounced “crack,” means “fun” or “good times” or you can say something like, “what’s the craic?” for “what’s happening?” or “whats going on?” THANKS B for your hot Brit Butt!

By Jessica | June 30, 2009 | Main Courses, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 1 Comment

B and I got Wii and I have been killin it in some mario kart. Sometimes I let him win, but only when I’m trying to get some. But I think our marioluigilove is carrying over in the kitchen cause wea makina somea pizza. Foreal this is easy when you buy the dough from whole foods or your local pizzaria. It’s like, forty cents and you gain a whole freaking day of not watching dough rise. Modernity at its best.

So we thought we would get some kitchen stadium action over in BK. Although there was no secret ingredient, we were going to have a winner. And if cooking was anything like driving a remote control video game, I was clearly going to win.

The Breakdown
5 points for originality
5 points for presentation
5 points for health
10 points for taste

And yes, he and I were both doing the cooking, the judging AND the eating. Guess who won. Just goes to blow ya, a woman’s place is in the kitchen.

Pizza of the Sea

My Big Fat Greek Pizza

By Jessica | April 16, 2009 | Main Courses, Projects, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 8 Comments

I love Easter cause it’s all the food and none of the shopping. It’s not that I don’t like giving (or getting) christmas or kwanza gifts for my loved ones. It’s that if I have to stand in one more holiday line, fight my way through one more crowd of coupon-wielding buyers, I will punch a bitch in their mouth. And that’s why JJ loves Easter. You get to eat lots with fam and get drunk without having to remember to leave cookies for jesus.

B and I hosted this year. We had my fam and friends without fam (or friends with fam that don’t love them much). And instead of packing the place with the usual overfed fatties, we wanted to cook a regular amount of food for a regular sized plate – very unamerican of us. (well, B’s not american, that’s probably where that comes from). Anyways. We made lamb, roast potatoes, salad and asparagus. Check it, check it out to the bricka bricka.

Roasted Leg of Lamb
5.5 lbs of boneless lamb
2.5 lbs of boneless lamb
5 cloves or garlic
leaves from 4 stalks of rosemary
olive oil
salt
pepper
baking twine / string
Serves 12

I grabbed these two pieces of lamb /\ and cut the larger one in half so I had thee equal pieces of meat. You can do two 4lb pieces if you want but it will change the cooking time. The night before you are to gorge on this lamb roast, toss your garlic and rosemary leaves into the food processor. While pulsing, drizzle olive oil until it becomes a paste. You may have to pause to scrape the sides of the processor. When the paste is made, swath over your lamb meat and and stick in the fridge for a day.

About 30 minutes prior to roasting, pull out the lamb and bring to room temp. Preheat your oven to 450 degree. While waiting, wrap your lambs up into tight little footballs with your cooking string. It will be obvious where you are doing the folding and the tightening – promise. Tie that mother tight and place each piece into one large roasting pan.

Roast at 450 for 15 minutes. Reduce the temp to 325 and roast until the meat is at 125 for medium rare. Go get yourself a meat thermometer. It will change everything. Gonna be about 45 minutes at 325, but I can’t tell you exactly cause there are too many variables. Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Get your hot piece of meat (for me, that’s B) to cut your roast against the grain for optimal tenderoni.

Tangerine and Fennel Over Greens
This is the same tired ass salad I made the other night but I just cannot get enough of this shit.

Grilled Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce
I’m not going to bother to give you a recipe for the hollandaise sauce cause it’s not worth it. I mean, it was good, but really i just used tyler florence’s tastiness and I know you aren’t going to make this shit anyways.

Grilled Asparagus Recipe: Buy asparagus. Cut asparagus. Oil asparagus. Grill asparagus. Eat asparagus. Pee asparagus.

Roast Potatoes English Style
I don’t know how to make these – this was all B. But dead ass, this was the best thing on the table. Thank you Mama B for giving your son a butt like that and also teaching him how to make these nuggets of love. Maybe if we are lucky, he’ll jump in with a guest post and grace us with a recipe.

And last but not least, thanks so so much to K and P (click those letters) for taking these dizzle pics we see here. Never would have been able to wield a camera and a spatula and feed your asses at the same time. Big ups.

By Jessica | August 21, 2008 | Main Courses, Recipes | 3 Comments

Tonight the parents came over to ours for dinner. Thought I would do a little root connecting and cook a lebanese meal. Since i dont normally cook in such a style I had to follow recipes. I did a Chilled Cucumber Soup (sounds gross, I know) and a Minced Lamb Pizza called, Lahmajun. Alright, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t think the Cucumber Soup is lebanese. It just sounded good to say the whole meal was themed-out. Donit? See the next post for that recipe.

I found both recipes online. The Lahmajun called for making dough and baking pizza foreal, but I just made a meaty topping and put it on toasted pita bread. And you know what? That’s just fine, so shut up. Plus, since they like, raised me up, they’re gonna think I’m cool whether or not I’m baking my own dough. Anyway, after a good swath of yogurt, them pizzitas were magically delicious. Try this:

1 small white onion, finely chopped
1 small red pepper, finely chopped
1 lb of finely ground lamb
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp all spice
1 tbl of fresh lemon juice
1 tsp of red pepper flakes (or to taste)
2 cups of tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 tbls tomato paste (omg, those tubes are the bizzle)
finely chopped flat leaf parsley, (1 cup?)
salt to taste
olive oil
lemon and yogurt for garnish

Suate the onion and red pepper in the olive oil for 3 minutes. Add the lamb. Stir the meat up with a spoon constantly so that it breaks up. (although, there is a fine line here cause you don’t want your meat to be tough > be gentle to those morsels). Cook for 3 minutes. Before the lamb browns, add cumin, chili powder, all spice, and lemon. Immediately add the tomatoes, tomato paste and parsley.

If you are going to bake this into raw dough, set it aside and let cool. Find some other site about pizza dough making cause you’re not going to find it here.

Place your hot lamb mixture on toasted pita bread. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and swath with yogurt. Eat and think about Grandma Nick.