Nestling lamb chops into pearls of cous cous

After a winter of roasting root vegetables a beautiful spring week lies ahead with promises of balmy nights and sun filled days. A few weeks ago Anthony, our talented chef on the grill, started asking to get some lamb chops back on the menu. We tossed around ideas, some lent themselves to the passing season and we were both craving a light preparation with a cool sauce. Several days went by as we starting to plan where it would fit into the menu, the upcoming weather and the search for a new and interesting ingredient.
When the lamb racks arrived we carefully trimmed and digitally dissected ( i.e. used our fingers, an old phrase I learned from a chef early in my career, thanks Josh) the excess fat away and cleaned the bones also known as “frenching the bone.” Great meat, seasoned simply with salt and pepper then grilled / roasted to a well rested, ruby red medium rare simply speaks for itself. We pulled an old favorite sauce out of our quiver, the traditional Greek tzatziki sauce. No, not the glompy white cucumber flecked creme on your gyro but the bright, cucumber and herb perfumed yogurt meant to cut the richness of the unique flavor of lamb. Finally, we found an ingredient that had yet to make it onto our plates here at Niche the Lebanese cous-cous. Not to be confused with its delicate and much finer cousin, this texture is that of pasta and it’s size is just a bit smaller than a Kix or Cocoa Pebble. I toasted it in olive oil with a good dose of Spanish paprika and cooked it in a roasted red pepper broth until tender and then spread it out onto a sheet pan to cool. As the lamb is resting, asparagus tips are sauteed in olive oil along with the cous-cous before nesting onto the plate to be topped with lamb chops just waiting to be devoured.
After all that, what finally distilled itself onto the menu is the collaboration of a few cooks craving some lamb chops but you’ll just have to taste for yourself! Mouth watering yet? Until next time . . .Chef Jeremy

Sheppard’s Pie Potato Tips

Sheppard’s Pie, the mysterious Irish comfort food, said to be originally from England, will be prepared almost a million different ways over the next couple of days. Like casseroles or “hot dishes” we find on the tables of Americans for decades, each sheppard’s pie has its own familial adjustments to the recipe. Some use ground beef instead of lamb, some with peas and other root vegetables even some with just meat and gravy. One fluffy, golden brown component that is always present is the potato mixture that caps the hearty stew.

No matter what variations to the recipe you have for the stew there are a few tips and things to watch out for that will set your sheppard’s pie apart. Most recipes call for the potatoes to be boiled before mashing.  Cooking the potato properly is the foundation of the topping. If you do like to boil the potatoes don’t forget to add salt to the water and after you drain the potatoes, spread them out onto a buttered baking pan. Put the baking pan into a preheated oven (350 degrees) and bake until the steam no longer comes off the potatoes but before the brown. The excess water will only weigh down the potatoes and where the water was you can now fill it back up with butter and egg yolks.

After drying out the potatoes, put them into a mixer on medium speed, add the butter and egg yolks whisking just to incorporate. If you leave the potatoes in the mixer to long they will begin to get “gluey” and lose their delicate texture. Fold some scallions and herbs into the mix for more flavor and a bit of garnish. Put the somewhat cooled mixture into a pastry bag with a large star tip and pipe onto the top of your stew. Remember that the more surface area you create with the star tip and piping pattern, the crispier the golden brown crust gets.

For the next few nights we are infusing our Winter Tasting Menu with some traditional Irish fare. Tomorrow night we will serve our version of sheppard’s pie to celebrate St. Patrick. To put our unique touch on it, we are gently braising lamb shoulder in broth with cipolinni onions, baby carrots and garlic until if falls apart. The fluffy and golden brown potatoes will crown each individual crock and bake until golden brown. To finish the dish, rather than the peas in the stew we are gently draping sweet pea tendrils. Erin go braugh!   Chef Jeremy

A splash of vinegar, a glug of oil and a bit of sunshine

I think most will agree that summertime salads are a staple at backyard barbeques, patio parties and outdoor picnics. However, the type of salad dressing that best compliments such warmer weather fare often seems up for debate. When walking down grocery store aisles, rows of multi-colored, textured and stabilized dressings provide shoppers with hundreds of choices. To create a summer salad dressing that is both light and can be made to suit the tastes of most everyone, I want to explain the basics of creating a vinaigrette.

Vinaigrettes, the combination of oil and vinegar, are typically made of three parts oil to one part vinegar. However, this basic ratio is relative to the amount of finished dressing that can be made, as small as 3 teaspoons oil to 1 teaspoon vinegar, all the way up to 3 gallons oil to 1 gallon vinegar. If you like your vinaigrette a bit more tart you can use two parts oil to one part vinegar, but be weary to let the dressing sit on your salad for long, as the lettuce will wilt much faster.

When making vinaigrettes, don’t feel confined to just using vinegars, but try using naturally acidic juices from citrus fruit and even fruit juices like that of berries or apples. These juices just need a splash of vinegar before mixing with oil. Allow the vinegar to sit or macerate with onions, garlic and ginger, along with salt and pepper for 20 to 30 minutes before mixing. This will allow the flavors to be extracted and the salt to dissolve.

When choosing oil, select an extra virgin olive oil that is very aromatic, but don’t feel confined to using the Italian staple.  I encourage you to experiment using other oils both for their flavor and for their texture, like peanut, corn, vegetable, sesame and even nut-infused oils. When creating Asian style vinaigrettes I tend to make my own blend of oil with peanut oil, for its light texture and add a little sesame for flavor. To infuse other flavors into oil gently warm up a neutral oil like vegetable or grape seed on your stovetop in a sauce pot over low heat with aromatic spices and/or ingredients. Allow it to sit at room temperature until cool before straining and making the dressing.

I don’t think that there is or will ever be a comprehensive collection of all the possibilities of vinaigrette and I hope there never is. As long as a cook at any level can understand the basic ratio and has an appreciation for the elemental ingredients of vinaigrette, the possibilities are infinite, bound only by the imagination. The next time you walk down a grocery aisle or through the farmer’s market; let your imagination run and experiment with different flavors and textures in your salad. Whatever you do, don’t confine yourself to a recipe, as the result of creativity almost always leads to something unique.

Summers Syrupy Sweet Drops

With the dog days of summer now upon us, the sun shines late in the day and leaves many of us craving sweet refreshment. If you’re like me, nothing beats an ice cold beverage to cool off with in the late afternoon. A little sugar just seems to sweeten the rest of the day. Let’s take a look at the sugars used to sweeten summertime drinks.

My personal favorite is natural cane sugar. Every morning, I make a large café au lait and add more packets of Sugar In The Raw than I care to share. Processed from a large, quickly growing cane that grows close to the equator, the cane is cut, pressed of its syrupy juices and cooked until crystals begin to form. The brown color of cane sugar comes naturally from the cane and when separated from the sugar in the refining process it’s called molasses.

Be careful of the imitators that will take refined beet sugar and spray it with molasses to create a deceptive look alike. Yes, I said beet sugar. Unbeknownst to many, half of the “sugar” consumed in the United States is made from sugar beets. Sugar cane here in the U.S. is mainly grown in more tropical environments throughout the southern states. Refineries are required to label their sugar with beet or cane. Usually the package will say “pure cane sugar,” so if not specified, it’s probably made from refined beets.

Born and raised in Decatur, Illinois, the home of the major manufacturer of corn byproducts, I grew up not knowing that most of my food and beverages were sweetened with corn syrup. This topic alone has become a forefront issue in today’s health. A wealth of information can be found both for and against our country’s connection to sweets. Yet still, one of my favorite treats when I go shopping at La Huerta Supermarket for authentic ingredients is a small bottle of Coca Cola imported from Mexico. It’s sweetened with natural cane sugar and is a welcomed splash of refreshment.

When I’m cooking in the kitchen on a hot summer day, I also love to make a bucket of watermelon fresca for the crew and I. First, I make a heavy syrup from sugar and water and as I pull it from the stove, I throw in some zest of lime before allowing to cool. I juice a watermelon and a few limes, pour them over ice and add the lime syrup to sweeten. I usually make this in one of our house made ice cream tubs and love to shake it vigorously before serving.

However sweet you like your day or your beverages, be sure to take the time to enjoy the refreshment. It’s the sweetest of moments in the day that make it worth getting up tomorrow.