Lex Culinaria

Mrs. Cratchitt's Lesser Known Roast Lamb

You caught me.

Mrs. Cratchitt roast a goose for Christmas supper and as far as I know no mention of lamb was ever made.

I truly believe, however, that If Mrs. Cratchitt had endured 33 years of roast goose each October and each Christmas, and she was as sick to death of it as I am of the ubiquitous roast turkey, she'd be right alonside me eying up a fluffy lamb or two and Little Timmy would have been gnawing on a shank rather than a drumstick.

Don't get me wrong. Mum does a great turkey - moist, flavourful and with a nice crispy skin (my cousin Toddy used to refer to it as "scab", mind you he used to spit at girls too - hi Toddy!). Unfortunately, I think I hit my lifetime limit for turkey-eating last Thanksgiving because, inexplicably, sometime between then and Christmas I migrated from believing that turkey was an integral part of holiday meals to despising it.

This is why, cher readers, I bucked tradition once again and served a crispy roast lamb for Christmas dinner. I know. Where will the craziness end? First the purple Thanksgiving potatoes and now this! This is cutting edge stuff I tell you.

So what, you may ask, did I do? Simply this:

I mixed together:

• 300 grams good quality feta cheese
• 454 grams frozen chopped spinach (thawed) (frozen spinach is easier and quicker than sauteeing the fresh spinach - but go ahead and do that if you must)
• 1 teaspoon cracked pepper
• 1/2 head roasted garlic
• 2 cloves miced raw garlic, lightly sauteed
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs

I mooshed it all up with my hands and spread it on top of a:

• 1.5 Kilogram boned leg of lamb, butterflied

 

Which I then rolled up and tied with cooking twine and rubbed the outside all over with a mix on minced fresh rosemary (1 tablespoon), olive oil (1/3 cup) and sea salt (1 teaspoon).

Then I roasted it in the oven at 450F for 30 minutes plus 400F for 30 minutes per 500 grams. I also deglazed the roasting pan with red wine and added another sprig of rosemary and some extra roasted garlic cloves to make a jus.

Voila. Christmas Lamb.

The outside (as you can see) got all nice and crispy and the inside was lovely rare-ish with a flavourful stuffing that stood up to the strong lamb. I think next time I'd likely add an egg or two to the stuffing as it did come apart a bit.

Tasting Notes from my Christmas Stocking

In 1999, when I moved to Australia my sister, Heat, started a humurous newsletter to keep everyone informed as to her life and news. In order to keep this funny and witty, she borrowed little clever snippets from here and there and, occasionally, poked fun at her friends and family. Woe betide the sad soul who unwittingly said something funny or silly with in earshot of my sister. As often ad not it would (and does) end up in print. Thanks to my frequent emails home, woe has betided me in this particular way plenty over the last 7 years.

Since I moved back to Canada, I am not emailing as frequently and Heat clearly is lacking in suitable material  as a result. So her new filler for the newsletter, pokes fun at Lex Culinaria. Her most recent newsletter featured a purportedly  "Lex Culinaria" inspired article about the time she mistakenly bought strawberry flavoured milk for her camping trip and the disatrous stroganoff noodles that resulted. It was pretty funny. Especially since she actually ate it. Ugh.

In furtherance of this fun-poking, she and her partner, Corey, bought me Cheese in a Can and a Spam Singles packet for Christmas. I am quite impressed that you can buy vaccuum packed single slices of Spam. I had no idea! I also had no idea that it was so easy to "rip and tear my way to Crazy Tasty Town". What marketing genius came up with that creepy phrase? Perhaps that kind of slogan goes over well in Korea.

For the record, I did eat the becheesed cracker pictured at the top of the post - it tastes (unsurprisingly) like the cheese in those little Kraft cheese and cracker packets. You know...the ones with the little red plastic stick for spreading the cheese. I loved those as a kid. I also (unapologetically, if inexplicably) still have a soft spot for Cheez Whiz. I know it starts life as mouldy cheese ends and then gets coloured neon orange to cover up its natural grey colour. I know all this and yet I still eat it every once in a while. I do not have a soft spot for Spam.

Corey and Heat did redeem themselves by giving me two great cookbooks. Cakes added to the culinary treasure trove with a KitchenAid immersion blender with umpteen kajillion gadgets, a cool silicon pastry brush (which Matilda has already chewed 3 bristles off!) and a snazzy new sieve to replace my old, lumpy, rusty one that I bought in 1996 in Vancouver when I first discovered the joy of shopping at restaurant supply stores.

I hope everybody's Christmas was equally as fun and full of great family and gourmet goodies. I promise to tell you about the roast lamb I made for Christmas dinner!

I'll be home for Christmas

According to the date on this photo, I made this yummy stew a year ago. I never wrote about that meal  because I neglected to write down what the heck I did. I do recall that it was very good though. It certainly looks like it would have been yummy. However, now I have even less of an idea as to how I made it, so there's no recipe here. I just thought you might like to look at it while I'm gone. If you're curious as to what else I cooked last year at this time, check these oldies but goodies out:

Luscious Labanya

Essential Roast Chicken

Divine Sublime Garlicky Mashed Potatoes

Ab Fab Mixed Berry & Nut Crumble

Angel Food Cake with Fresh Lemon Curd

Cakes and I are going to get into our little car later today and travel back to the place where the whole cooking thing began for me: My mother's kitchen. It's not the same kitchen and not the same house, but it's the same Mum, and she was the key ingredient. Cakes and I will be there until the 28th at which time, we'll pile back into the car, 5 pounds heavier a piece, and drive home fighting off a turkey coma.

I hope you all have the best holiday, filled with lots of good food, friends, family and warmth. I'll see y'all when I get back.

Christmas (Rice) Pudding

I needed some comfort food tonight. I'm home sick and feeling pretty rotten, and I couldn't think of anything at all that I wanted to eat. Except rice pudding.

I am trying to feel festive despite the totally unChristmassy +5 C weather outside that threatens to melt what litte snow we have and expose us to an ugly brown, rather than romantic white, Christmas. So I decided to combine the two concepts - Christmassyness and rice pudding. And came up with this pudding, which really isn't much of a stretch for me as I ususally lace my rice pudding with cinnamon, cardamom and raisins (sorry Sam). This time I just added currants and nutmeg and candied peel as well.

It hit the spot. It was creamy and spicey and fruity. And gone quickly.

The nutmegginess was slightly reminiscent of eggnog and the currants reminded me of mince tarts or  plumb pudding.

If you're in the mood for a Christmassy pudding but don't want to be bothered with making an actual Christmas pudding, give it a whirl:

• 250 ml carnaroli rice
• 250 ml whole milk
• 375 ml water
• 5 ml ground cinnamon
• 5 ml ground cardamom
• 2 ml ground nutmeg
• 200 ml sugar
• 125 ml currants
• 125 ml raisins
• 15 ml very finely chopped candied peel
• 10 ml vanilla extract
• 125 ml cream

Place all ingredients except cream and vamilla in a heavy pot. Bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or according to the time given on the pacakge of rice, adding more liquid if necessary during cooking. When rice is cooked through, remove from heat and stir through the cream and vanilla. You can dish it up now, straight from the pot, or you can do what I did which was to:

Allow the pudding to cool slightly.  Spoon portions of warm pudding into ramekins. Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top of each ramekin. Caramelize the sugar under the broiler or with a blowtorch to form a crusty top.

Seared Sesame Tuna

Can I just start out by saying this is totally the easiest thing to make? In fact, this dish has a yum to work ratio that is off the charts! It is absolutely scrummy and tkaes no effort at all! I swear! Cakles and I cleaned our plates within minutes!

I've always shied away from making tuna steaks asI was afraid of over cooking them, or undercooking them or that they would just not be as good as in the restaurant. I now see the error of my ways.

For a completely yummy supper for two you will need:

• 2 fresh tuna steaks
• 1/2 cup soy sauce (Kikkoman if possible)
• 1/3 cup toasted white and/or black sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon wasabi paste
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

Marinate tuna steaks in soy sauce by placing them together in a ziplock bag anf placing them in the fridge for 20 to 40 minutes.  Meanwhile, spread the toasted sesame seeds evenly in the bottom of a soup plate.  Mix mayonnaise and wasabi together.

Once the fish is finished marinating, drain the steaks and  press them into the sesame seeds to coat all sides.

Heat oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Sear tuna on both sides (about one or two minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the steaks and heat of the pan). Remove to a plate or cutting board. Slice with a very sharp knife. Arrange tuna slices on plate and top with wasabi mayonnaise.

So many cookies, so little time...

Remember how I made those lemon and lavender cookies a few weeks back? Remember how I promised to do a post on decorating them?  Well, here you go. I finally did it!

Every year at Christmas (and on Valentines Day and sometimes Easter too) I make a huge batch of these fancy decorated cookies for giving away to friends. I take a few to each party I go to for hostess gifts, I make a pretty box up for the neighbours who look in on our cats. I love these cookies. Of all the things I make in my kitchen that make me feel great, these are the best. Baking and decorating a big batch of these really makes me feel all bouncy and cheerful. They're so bright and sweet and pretty. I love to see people's faces light up when they lift the box-top off and fold back the tissue paper I pack these in. They clearly look impressive, but really aren't as difficult as they look. I decorated about 50 of these on Saturday, and it took me about  one and a half hours.

You can use any old sugar cookie or shortbread recipe for these, although this year I made lavender and lemon "shortbreads". I generally make up one big batch of royal icing consisting of:

• 4 or 5 egg whites (or meringue powder, reconstituted)
• a teaspoon of lemon juice
• about 6 cups of icing sugar, well sifted
• several drops of glycerin

If you don't use the glycerin, your icing will look very matte when set - the glycerin helps the icing to keep a nice sheen after it's dried. Two drops of glycerin in this amount of icing will get you an eggshell finish, 4 will get you a glossier finish. Mix your ingredients together thoroughly to make a nice creamy white icing that holds its shape when piped using a thin round tip.

I usually have a stack of little white bowls (I get mine at Ikea for 50 cents each) on hand in which to mix my colours. I take a about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the white into each of 4 or 5 bowls and stir in a tiny bit of Wilton paste colour. You only need the tiniest bit of this stuff - I use a bamboo skewer that I dip into the colour pot and then run through the icing - for great colour. This time I used pink, blue and two greens as well as the plain white icing.  I also use heavy duty disposable plastic icing/pastry bags that I get in rolls of 100 for $6 from a cake decorating shop. That way, if all you're doing is straight lines, you don't have to have tips and couplers for all your different icing colours. Just snip off the ends of your icing tubes (carefully!) and pipe away.

I snip off the ends of the tubes only far enough to make a hole the size of the shaft of a pencil lead. Then I put several tablespoons of coloured icing in each one so that I have half the coloured icing in tubes and the other half still in the bowl. To the icing left in the bowl I add enough water to thin it to the consistency of pancake syrup or whipping cream.

Then I either pipe designs right onto the bare cookie, like this:

or I pipe in an outline of icing, wait ten minutes for it to dry, and fill in the centre with the runnier icing of the same colour to make a solid colour. Then I either wait for it to dry totally before piping another colour on it to decorate, like this:

or I decorate it with another colour right away and let that second colour sink into the first colour like this:

When I'm done I package them up all purty like and give them to my friends!

WCB: So many kitties, so little time...

Matty and Fitzy are very happy their mother has finally gotten her act together to participate in this round of Weekend Cat Blogging.

They would like also to know what I did with the cookies that were just here.

Ham and Cheese Bread Pudding

Sadly, there is no photo of this tasty dish as we forgot our camera at home when we took this to the potluck, so please enjoy this gratuitous photo of some candles on my dining table in order to get in a festive mood.

My mother has been making a family favourite Christmas breakfast called "Christmas Morning Wifesaver" from time immemorial. Well, maybe not that long, but at least since I was seven or eight. She clipped the recipe from the local newspaper that first year and sello-taped it to the inside of the kitchen cupboard door. Each time we moved house, that scrap of newspaper would be peeled off the cupboard door and transported to the new house for taping into a new cupboard. My best guess is that the still pristine scrap of newspaper has been variously pasted on five different cabinet doors over a period of 25 years.

Christmas Morning Wifesaver is essentially a savoury strata. It is also very much informed by the gourmet standards of the newspaper from which (and when) is was clipped. It calls for a couple loaves of white bread, sliced and trimmed of crust, tinned mushroom slices, diced onion, diced green bell pepper, and a topping of crushed cornflakes and butter as well as the usual egg/milk mixture. How much more late-seventies can you get?

As I was recently contemplating the wisdom of initiating a change in the formula of this recipe (if for no other reason than the idea of tinned mushrooms makes me feel slightly ill) I was browsing around epicurious the other day and stumbled across this recipe. I was so intrigued by the concept that I instantly threw over my previous commitment to make a Paella for the annual Christmas Potluck gathering for the Downunder Club of Edmonton and decided instead to make a version - more like a bread pudding than a strata and with adjustments to some of the ingredients to suite my personal preference (the original recipe has the balance of cheese wrong for my taste). Besides, I'm essentially a lazy cook, and, where I can turn a strata, with the need for layering, into a bread pudding, which is really just a jumble, I will. So here's what I did:

INGREDIENTS:

• 680 grams French bread (about 1.5 loaves - loaves are usually about a pound or 454 grams each)
• 60ml (0.25 cup) canola oil
• 875 ml (3.5 cups) 2% milk
• 500 ml (2 cups) cream
• 7 large eggs
• 5 large cloves garlic, chopped
• 10 ml (2 teaspoons) salt
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) black pepper
• 2.5 ml (0.5) teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 30 ml (2 tablespoons) chopped fresh sage
• 30 ml (2 tablespoons) chopped fresh thyme
• 10 ml (2 teaspoons) herbes de Provence
• 275 grams (approx 2 cups) soft fresh goat cheese, crumbled
• 500 grams (about 3 cups) coarsely chopped ham
• 16 canned artichoke hearts (approximately 2 x 400 ml cans or jars), drained and chopped
• 750 ml (3 cups) packed grated Fontina cheese
• 250 ml (1 cup) panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
• Spray on olive oil

Grease a large baking dish (I used a small foil roaster - the dish should be more than 3 inches deep).

Tear bread (leaving the crusts on) into 2-3 inch pieces. Set the bread pieces aside. 

Stir together until thoroughly combined: cream, milk, oil, eggs, garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, sage, thyme and herbes de Provence. Pour milk mixture into a large mixing bowl with bread cubes. use your (clean) hands to squish the bread and milk together gently until bread is thoroughly soaked, about 3-5 minutes. Don't worry that you're breaking the bread up too much, that's what's supposed to happen. Add ham, artichoke hearts and cheeses to the bread mixture and combine with your hands until it is all evenly distributed.

Pour the mixture into the pan, cover and chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Bake pudding, uncovered for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle top of pudding with panko. Spray with olive oil. If you don't have spray on oil (not Pam!) Use your hands to mix a few tablespoons of softened butter into the bread crumbs before you put them on the pudding. return pan to oven and continue to bake for a further 20 minutes. If the panko isn't brown enough for you, give the pudding a few minuted under the broiler to finish it off.

This pudding is soft and cloud like in the middle and crispy on top. I made it for a late supper potluck, but it would be great for brunch as well.

Family Style Platter Meal (plus the best freaking roast potatoes on earth!)

I'm a big fan of sharing a good meal and a nice bottle of wine with friends on a Saturday or Sunday night. When I've had all day to futz around in the kitchen making good smells and filling the house with steam (and sometimes smoke!). When no one has to be at work the next day and you can sit around chatting into the night, bellies full.

For this reason I love fondues and tapas. This time, I decided to try a different kind of shared meal - the family platter. You just plonk down a huge platter on which is displayed the entire meal: meat and potatoes and vegetables. Everyone takes from the same platter in the middle of the table. In the way that everyone dips into the same fondue pot brimming with melted cheese. There's certainly something about sharing from a communal vessel that makes a dinner seem more friendly and intimate - the perfect way to share a meal with family or treasured friends.

This weekend's menu included:

• Apple and ginger ham
• Savoy cabbage and peas in a mustard cream sauce

AND....

The Best Freaking Roast Potatoes on Earth!  (serves 4)

• 6 large russet potatoes (I will take no blame whatsoever if you use a different kind of potato)
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup canola oil
• salt & pepper

Peel and cut the potatoes into largish chunks, roughly 3 pieces per potato. Boil the potatoes in salted water until they are cooked through and begin to get quite floury on the outside. I did mine in the microwave (in a plastic container with water to cover) and it took 12 minutes. Drain out the water and put the potatoes back into the container, drizzle with canola oil (use more oil rather than less, as the extra will melt off during cooking) and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Use a slotted spoon (or your hands, if you've done the potatoes ahead of time and they are not too hot) to toss the potatoes around in the oil. The outsides of the potatoes should break up a fair bit - this is exactly what you want. The floury outside of the potatoes will combine with the seasoned oil to make a gorgeous coating that gets unbelievably crispy when baked! When they are adequately coated, transfer them to a foil-lined baking sheet. Place them on the lowest oven rack in a 400F oven for 15 minutes, then transfer them to the top rack and broil them, turning with tongs where necessary, for a further 15 minutes, until their outsides are golden and crispy.

These potatoes are the perfect mix of crispy outside and soft, floury, creamy inside. Sigh.

If you've got leftovers, which you won't, you can re-crisp them with 15 minutes under the broiler.

Ginger and apple juice ham

I've done ham in Coke more times than I can count. It's a perennial favourite in our house because it's so easy and good. We have it at least every other month. Even so, every now and then you've got to shake things up a bit and think outside the...um...pot(?).

I reckon the reason ham in Coke tastes so good is due in large part to the sugar, so, following that basic premise, I reasoned that the very sweet organic apple cider that Cakes buys in gallon jugs would do just as well. I'm pleased to say I was correct. The ham turned out beautifully juicy and slightly sweet with a faint fruity, gingery aroma, which was a nice change from the smoky-Coke taste. Ham also has the benefit of being quite cheap, especially if you get it on sale. We got a lovely huge 3.6 kilo bone-in ham from the local supermarket around thanksgiving for $11.50 (that's $3.29 a kilogram!). Luckily, uncooked smoked ham freezes very well (we bought two at that time).  This is ham #2 of that batch:

• 1 smoked bone in ham (whatever size you like - we always get one that's big beyond all reason as we like to have leftovers for cold ham salads and the odd sandwich or two)
• 1 gallon unfiltered apple juice or cider
• 350 grams brown sugar (about 3/4 cup)
• 6 - 3cm long slices of ginger
• 2 medium yelow onions cut in wedges

If you've got a really salty ham, boil it first in water for 10 or 15 minutes to draw out some of the salt. If you're unsure about the salt content of your ham, I'd boil it in the water just to be sure. Pour off the water and, leaving the ham in the pot, throw in the ginger slices, brown sugar and onions. Pour in as much of the aple juice as you need to cover the ham. If you use a pot that is only slightly larger than the ham you intend to cook, the gallon should be enough. If it's not, top it up with water or more apple juice until the ham is covered.

Bring the pot to a boil and boil your ham for 30 minutes per 500 grams plus an additional 30 minutes for the pot. Our 3.6 kilo ham got boiled for 3.5 hours and was falling off the bone tender! It was also juicy and moist and very nicely flavoured with a touch of sweet. If you'd like, you could reserve some of the juice and try boiling it down into a sweet syrup to serve with the ham which, I bet mixed with seeded mustard would be really nice. I couldn't be bothered, having just waited 3.5 hours for the ham to cook, so I just mixed together a little brown sugar, seeded mustard and a pinch of dried ginger for spreading on the ham slices at the table and it was lovely.