Rack of Lamb

Our last night in Calgary, S's mom cooked us a delicious dinner of rack of lamb, baba ganoush and taboulleh, pictured here with a pile of pita triangles. I've already blogged about the baba ganoush recipe. Here are the others:

Rack of Lamb
(serves 4)

2 racks of lamb
1/3 C balsamic vineagar
1/3 C red wine
1/3 C soy sauce
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced

Marinate the racks of lamb in all of the ingredients listed above except the peppercorns for one-and-a-half to two hours.

Grind some peppercorns and coat the racks of lamb with a peppercorn crust. In a 400 - 450 F oven roast the racks for about 20 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 140 F. Turn once after 10 minutres if you are broiling them (roasting them on the top shelf of the oven).

After the meat has rested for a few minutes, cut the racks into four equal pieces. We had four ribs each.

And now the taboulleh...

Taboulleh
serves 6
Prep time: About 1 hour, but mostly waiting for bulgur to soak

1/2 C fine bulgur wheat
6 to 7 roma tomatoes,
6 small spring onions or 4 fat ones
2 bunches of parsely
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 C olive oil
1-2 Tbsp dried mint or fresh mint, chopped, to taste
salt and pepper to taste
a sprinkle of sugar

Rinse the bulgur wheat six times (or fewer if you are in a rush). More than cover with boiling water and let soak for 1/2 hour to one hour.

Prepare the vegetables: Quarter the tomatoes and seed them so the juices run out. Thinly slice the spring onions on the diagonal. Pinch off the florets on the parsley bunches, wash them and squeeze dry in a paper towel, then chop finely.

When the bulgur has soaked, combine all the ingredients and serve.

A Mediterranean Menu in February

Without further ado, here's the scoop on my first dinner party in a long long time. Some friends and I get together every so often and this time it was my turn to entertain. It was mid-February and pretty cold and snowy, so to warm things up I cooked a bunch of Moroccan and Mediterranean dishes. On the menu: baba ganoush, hummus, bread and pita triangles to start; Moroccan chicken and a Tuscan green bean salad as the main; and maple-poached pears for dessert.

I made this baba ganoush using a delicious recipe of my boyfriend's mother, and it goes like this:



Baba Ganoush

1 large eggplant
2 teaspoons tahini
juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, minced
salt
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

Peel the eggplant and quarter it. Salt the quarters and let them sit for an hour until the water comes out. Rinse the quarters. Slice thinly and lay in one layer on a baking sheet. Brush with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and bake in oven for half an hour at 375 F (or you could microwave for about five minutes). Mash with a fork and serve on a plate (more authentic) with olive oil drizzled on top and toasted nuts and chopped parsely.

This next picture is of the moroccan chicken with tomatoes and saffron-honey jam, a recipe I found on Chubby Hubby's website, originally published in Diana Henry's Crazy Water Pickled Lemons. It goes well with couscous, but I served it with a similar grain called quinoa (pronounced "keenwa") because one of my guests had a wheat allergy:



I served it with a Tuscan green bean salad, from Dana McCauley's Pantry Raid. I use this book a lot because most of the recipes are less than 10 ingredients - and they are all really tasty!

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
juice of half a lemon
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp EVOO
1/3 C diced pecorino or asiago cheese
1/2 lb green beans
salt and pepper

Whisk lemon peel with juice, garlic, salt and pepper, EVOO and cheese. Wash, trim and cut green beans in half. Blanch in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking process and keep the bright green colour. Combing with cheese mixture.

The best thing about these recipes is that I made them all in advance! I made the chicken a week in advance and froze it. The baba ganoush and the maple-poached pears I made the night before and the green bean salad I made a couple of hours before my guests came.