Category Archives: lamb

Dinner Party: Lamb, Pinot, and a Summer Breeze

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Cookouts are a novelty in New York City.  Growing up in Atlanta, I completely took it for granted that we had a grill and private outdoor space, where we could gather together to eat, drink, and laugh to our hearts’ content. Here, however, I can count the number of people who have the luxury of a patio or backyard on one hand. My friends Emily and Mike are some of the lucky few — in fact, they not only have a terrace but also a killer view of the Hudson River from their place on Riverside Drive. And fortunately for me (who is starting to go a little stir-crazy in this hot city), they invited a group of us over for dinner last night.

I was too busy enjoying the breeze and the view to snap a photo,
but Toni managed to get one of the table. 

After some wonderful strawberry-lemonade cocktails that Emily made, we sat down to a meal of lime-cumin-and-coriander marinated lamb chops that I brought from my stash, an herb-and-balsamic couscous filled with fresh parsley and basil from Emily and Mike’s flower pots, and some yummy sea salt kettle chips. We’d decided upon a pinot noir pairing: Bo brought a bottle of Au Bon Climat, while Alexxa and I both brought a Mark West from Sonoma County.

Ours was an ’08.

To shake things up, we decided to chill one of the West’s. The wine professed to have lots of bright cherry and raspberry notes, which were present in the chilled wine, but it wasn’t until we drank the other bottle that we noticed its spicy, dry, and dusty qualities (fairly common characteristics of Sonoma wines, I’ve found, especially their syrahs): in both cases, the wine’s high acidity went beautifully with the meat. Then, when we popped the Au Bon Climat, we experienced the real treat of wine themes – it was a totally different wine, light, fruit-forward, and with this beautiful black pepper finish.

I talk big, but this is what I actually look like when I drink wine…

As the sun was setting, we dug into Mike’s homemade ice cream sandwiches (apparently a theme this summer): M&M and chocolate chip cookies, with coffee ice cream in between. We sat around the table a bit longer, savoring the warm summer breeze and watching the red moon as it rose, before we all headed home to our stuffy apartments for the night. These moments make me love New York — this city reminds me how much joy the little pleasures bring, when you take the time to notice them.

Lime-Cumin-and-Coriander Lamp Chops

  • 3 garlic cloves, smashed and coarsely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp ground pepper
  • 2+ Tbsp olive oil
  • 21 (1/2- to 3/4-inch thick) lamb chops

Whisk together garlic, cumin, coriander, lime juice, salt, pepper, and oil and transfer to a sealable plastic bag large enough to hold the lamb (or to several individual bags). Add lamb and seal bag, then make sure the lamb is evenly coated. Marinate at room temperature, turning bag occasionally, for about 45 minutes.

Heat charcoal grill and cook lamb in batches about 3 minutes each side for medium-rare. Transfer cooked lamb to a plate and let sit, covered with aluminum foil. Let the meat rest about five minutes then serve.

Recipe adapted from Gourmet.

Party Favors: A Freezer Full of Lamb

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This past Tuesday, SAVEUR hosted its first annual Summer BBQ at Pier 66 in New York for the magazine’s chef and foodie friends. I spent much of the day running around in search of things like passion fruit puree for specialty cocktails for one of our advertisers, greeting chefs and their teams,  making sure the bar stayed stocked, and trying to find someone to pull town tarps when it started to rain… All in all, I had a blast and officially love my new job.

Look for me and my gray hat.
Image courtesy of newyork.metromix.com

Once everyone had left and things were mostly cleaned up, we were instructed to take as much home as you can. Really? Yes. This meant bottles of wine and rum that were left over, goodie bags, freshly squeezed lime juice, you name it. People gathered what they could carry (which was nowhere near everything), but no one went toward a lonely little cooler full of lamb left to us by chef Victor Casanova. I feared the worst: that all of that beautiful lamb would be left to rot on the pier with no refrigeration. Sufficiently upset, I grabbed the whole thing on the way out, added a few bottles of wine and some cage-free eggs that another chef had left behind, and carried my heavy load out to the West Side Highway to grab a cab home.

The loot. It looked like I was hiding a 
dead person in my fridge.
I was too tired when I got home to do anything but stick the meat in the fridge. So last night, I rolled up my sleeves, pulled out the boning knife, and got ready to remove the fell and french these suckers when something glorious happened — I opened the bags and they were already beautifully cut into individual servings. All I had to do was separate them into single-person portions to freeze, readying them for easy thawing for the thousands of yummy lamb dishes I will be trying over the coming weeks.
Toni’s freezer, full of meat (mine’s already full).
I kept a few out for dinner last night at Toni’s. Ana came over and I put the two of them to work on dessert (two Croatians + mistranslation of tsp/Tbsp + makeshift measuring utensils = a brand-new recipe for chocolate chip cookies). In the meantime, I steamed some rice and threw green beans into a pan with butter and almonds, a quick and easy stir-fry-and-steam method that I love when I need to quickly cook some veggies. 
Looking tasty.
I heated up the grill pan, added some salt, pepper, and fresh thyme to the chops, and let them cook, about 3-5 minutes a side (I like medium rare, but everyone else likes their meat cooked more thoroughly). Since the oven was heating up for the cookies, I put the lamb in a pan to finish in the oven for a few minutes.
A square meal.
We sat down to eat our very well-balanced meal (Mom taught me well: meat, starch, green) and poured ourselves a glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc… not a traditional pairing, but it went nicely with the meal, as well as with the humidity. While we were eating, we put the cookies into the oven for about ten minutes. I went to check on them and at first thought they hadn’t cooked at all. Then, I realized the bottoms were brown – the extra teaspoons of baking powder had created spongy cakes rather than a crispy cookies. Which was fine, as the plan was to make homemade ice cream sandwiches: their sponginess absorbed the melting ice cream and prevented the cookie from cracking as we bit into them. 
Really wishing I had another one of these, right now…
And Toni made me promise not to make him fat…

A Lovely Day, A Lovely Meal: The Cloisters, Lamb Chops, and Panzanella

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On Thursday afternoon, I got the best piece of news – I had a summer Friday the next day! One week in and already a day off! I decided I didn’t want to waste a gift of a day, so I took myself out to the Cloisters, a museum of medieval architectural remnants and treasures that actually integrates the elements into its structure. (I can hardly fathom the effort and thought that went into its making!)

 An image of one of the four cloister areas that was reconstructed once rescued from its original location.


Having rented the audio guide, I learned that the site—in Fort Tryon Park in Northern Manhattan—was chosen because of its isolation, so that it could reflect the actual setting of a Benedictine monastery, slightly removed from society. John D. Rockefeller, who acquired the Cloisters and the Park and gave them to the Met and the city of New York respectively, even bought the strip of land in New Jersey across the Hudson to prevent development and preserve the serenity of the location.

That’s called having a lot of money.
And doing good with it.

So, after having enjoyed such a perfect day, I decided I wanted to make the perfect meal. I had finished this month’s SAVEUR on the subway, and two recipes had struck me – lemon-thyme lamb chops and panzanella, or bread salad. The recipes were both rich with fresh and easy-to-find ingredients, many of which I already had around the house. (Most importantly, it would use up the half of a baguette I had left from dinner the night before). I made a slight tweak to the panzanella, using balsamic as I’d finished off the red wine vinegar. Eh voila! As beautiful, fresh, and simple as the way I’d spent my day.

My pretty spread, with a glass of Bordeaux to accompany.