Spice Glazed Lamb Chops with Red Wine and Coffee Sauce

I love coffee and red wine.  So putting them together in a sauce sounds amazing.  I've used ground coffee in spice mixes and rubs but I've never brewed up a pot of strong coffee and poured it into a sauce.  I was skeptical at first because I thought it would be bitter, but it was really good!  I couldn't taste anything that was identifiable as coffee.  It was a wine sauce with a nice earthiness to it.  It's definitely important that the coffee be strong.  I used the "strong" setting on my coffee maker and it worked fine. The ancho chile powder added a little bit of heat but the sauce as a whole blended really nicely. Next time I'd serve it over polenta or rice pilaf or something.  Normal people would probably make mashed potatoes (ew).  I used more pearl onions than the recipe called for, it seemed silly to use half a bag.  Plus they went really well with the sauce.  This dish wasn't actively quick, but it didn't take terribly long.  I would say it's doable on a work night if you aren't very busy.  I will definitely make this again because the sauce was fantastic.  I made a full recipe of sauce and didn't use it all.  

The asparagus was completely an afterthought.  

"Kibbeh" Meatballs

I've been away for a while, I went to Japan for vacation and it was fabulous!  Once I raid my local Japanese market, I'm definitely going to try and make some of the amazing food I tried while I was there.  Real ramen! Katsu! Sushi!  Well, maybe not sushi.  From what I hear it's expensive to ride in an ambulance.

But until then, here is a dish that was almost a colossal failure until my husband suggested we turn it into meatballs. It turned out to be a great tasting meal that made enough meatballs for me to freeze some extra.  I topped it with some super easy muhammara sauce and served it with a side of tabbouleh.

The plan was to make this recipe for baked kibbeh.  I don't know if it was because I ground my own lamb (Wegman's was out), if my onions were too watery, or my food processor juiced up on steroids while I was away, but it turned my kibbeh shell mixture into a sticky, runny pile of gloop that was impossible to roll into a uniform sheet and even harder to cut into rounds with a cookie cutter.  As I sat with my lamb gloop in one bowl and my delicious smelling filing in a frying pan and attempted to figure out how exactly I was going to turn it into kibbeh, my husband had an idea.  Why not just stir the filling into the meat disaster and make meatballs?  Brilliant!

Manti!!

One of my favorite restaurants in DC, Zaytina, used to feature a dish called manti, which were tiny Turkish dumplings filled with ground meat topped with an amazing salty garlic yogurt sauce and paprika.  Sadly, the manti disappeared from the menu for a while, and is only offered as a special now, from time to time.  Ever since trying them, I've wanted to make them myself, especially for the sauce.

Over the weekend, I had enough time to finally try the manti recipe from Turquoise.  All I can say is wow, these things were good.  The sauce was even better than what I had at Zaytinya!  The manti themselves were very labor intensive, and were worth making for the experience.  Apparently, the smaller the manti, the better the chef, but I made large ones to save time.  In the future, I'd probably use wonton wrappers to speed up the process.  But the sauce!  So. Good.  It's really two sauces: yogurt sauce and paprika butter.  I'm going to make it to serve with other dishes, like kofte kebab and Turkish chicken with tomato rice pilaf.  The sauce is salty, garlicky, and the paprika butter gives it a great spicy, smoky taste.  I topped my manti with some Aleppo pepper.

The finished product, with the tasty, tasty sauce.

Shirazi-Style Pan Cooked Lamb Kebab

I enjoy looking at the photos in Food of Life, but so many of  Najmieh Batmanglij's recipes are more appropriate for a feast than as dinner for two people.  But, this kebab recipe was easily scaled back for two people.

I know kebabs require skewers, but the only ones I have right now are metal and too long to fit in my largest pan.  So, I improvised! This Persian dish looks really awesome in the pan as it cooks.  It's a little less pretty as the tomatoes break down, but the lamb is so tender!  This dish is cooked by layering onion slices, lamb chunks, and tomatoes, to allow the tomatoes to release their juices over the meat and onions. 

Onions, lamb, and tomatoes layered in the pan.  Also look, my stove is clean!

Antep Lamb Not-Kebabs with Sumac Onions and Asparagus

Okay, so the plan was to make Antep kebabs from Turquoise, my awesome Turkish cookbook.  Too bad we forgot to turn the gas grill off the night before and all the propane escaped.  Since the grill was out of commission, my only choice was to use my Le Creuset grill pan.  The problem is that my metal skewers are way too long for me to use them with it.  So, kebabs were out of the question.  Also too bad: I bought lamb loin, not ground lamb, because apparently I don't know how to read.

But, this dish was still very good, and eliminating the step of skewering the meat may have made it easier to prepare.  The Lamb Spice Mix is fabulous, and would work really well outside of this dish. 

Since I wasn't skewering my meat and onions, I decided to thinly slice the onion and cook it with a little sumac for a tart punch.  I wanted some side dishes, so I made simple steamed asparagus and used some previously made hummus with pita. 

This salvaged meal turned out pretty awesome!

Lamb Chops with Spicy Chocolate Rub, Balsamic and Sage Onions, and Jalapeño Roasted Potatoes

I love lamb chops!  They're a bit of a pain to cook though.  I'm always worried that I'll overcook them and end up with dry, gray lamb chops that taste like they've been microwaved.  Thankfully, the grilling rules I found on the internet have been very helpful and so far, I've managed not to destroy any meat.

A few weeks ago, I went to a chocolate party.  That's right!  A party at which someone sold all manner of awesome chocolate products.  In addition to the usual bonbons and chocolate covered nuts, there were chocolate martinis, brownies, and a spicy chocolate meat rub.  When I first saw the sample of this at the party, I was immediately skeptical.  I thought the chocolate would be overwhelming.  But, it smelled more spicy than chocolatey.  I was intrigued, and for some reason the first meat that came to mind as an experiment was lamb chops.

This meal came together surprisingly easily, most of it was made while the potatoes were roasting.  The spice rub is awesome!  It's just a hint of cocoa mixed in with chili powder, garlic, and onion (and probably some other spices I couldn't identify).  It works very well with lamb! 

Anniversary Dinner! Pasta with Lamb Ragu and a Nice Bottle of Bordeaux

This weekend was my seventh wedding anniversary!  After all these years, my husband and I are as in love as we were when we met in law school (we met in torts, how romantic!).  Sunday was our actual anniversary, but we went out on Saturday so we didn't have to care about being out late.  Conveniently, A Game of Thrones premiered on Sunday night and we took the opportunity to cook something tasty and geek out in front of the TV.

This pasta dish is something we make a lot in the winter.  I've altered the original recipe a bit to make the spice mixture more to my liking and eliminate some waste.  Instead of using one rib of celery, I use a shallot because I always have one around and I rarely find a good use for random celery.  I added a clove of garlic and some extra ground fennel seed.  The fennel seed makes the sauce smell heavenly and it brings out the lamb really well. Instead of buying a tub of ricotta that would sit in the fridge until it achieved consciousness, I used grana padano.  Sometimes, we make our own pasta to go with it.  This time, we bought some fresh pasta from an Italian deli up the street.

This meal is a good excuse for a nice bottle of red wine.   Wine is a hobby of Dave's, so he decided to pair the dinner with one of his special bottles that we've had for a few years.  He picked a bottle of Chateau Tour St. Bonnet 2005 Médoc, which smelled wonderful and went well with the cheesy, fennel-y goodness of the lamb ragu. I lack the vocabulary to adequately describe the wine, it's definitely worth a try if you can get ahold of it.  It sells for around $20.  I would link to the official website but (1) it's in French and (2) it looks like it was designed in 1997 and my eyes can only take so much of the blink tag. 

Lamb and Smoky Chili Lahmacun (Turkish "pizza")

I'm a bit of a pizza snob and consider delivery pizza to be cardboard smeared with red sugar paste tomato sauce and fake cheese.  So, I've always wanted to make my own.  When I found this recipe for lamb lahmacun, I was intrigued because it involved a very thin, crispy crust and lamb, which I've always got in the freezer.  Lahmacun originated in Syria, but is popular throughout the Middle East.  Translated, it means "meat with dough." The first time I made this, I didn't think it was very pretty.  Then I did a google image search and saw that mine looked pretty good.  ;)  I make this every time I've got 5 oz or so of ground lamb in my freezer.  It's a treat on a weekend when I've got some time to let the dough sit for 2 hours.  It's also a great excuse to drink a light to medium bodied red wine. 

The dough has to sit for a while, but making the lamb paste doesn't take very long at all.  I add a little extra smoky paprika since I use more lamb than a normal portion would call for (a proper half recipe for this would use 3.5 oz of ground lamb and I use 5).   I could never figure out what a "long red chili" was when it was called for in this book.  Further, Wegmans never has red chilis other than the tiny Thai chilis, and I don't think they belong in Turkish cooking.  So, I substitute a long green chili hoping that they're similar.  The combination of lamb, onion, tomato, spicy chili, and smoked paprika is absolutely wonderful!  And it makes my kitchen smell good. 

As Close to Pi as I'm Going to Get

Yesterday was Pi Day, 3/14.  I should probably turn in my nerd card since I didn't bake a pie.  I think I've baked approximately 3 pies in my entire life (4 if you count the Meringue Debacle of 2003).  While they were good, they can't hold a candle to my mom's pies.  Last night I got home from work and had a choice.  I could attempt to cobble together some sort of pie-shaped thing with ingredients already in my pantry.  Or, I could just cook dinner and then play computer games.  I decided to make a dish that most closely approximated pi(e).  Behold, kofte kebab over crispy pita with tomato sauce and spiced yogurt!  I am the first to admit that this dish isn't the prettiest plate in the world, but it tastes awesome.  And although it requires a decent bit of chopping, the cooking time is relatively short, about 10 minutes for the lamb and tomato sauce.  The yogurt doesn't require cooking and is spooned on cold. Since it's not cooked, nonfat yogurt works just fine.  I adapted the yogurt sauce a little to make it more flavorful.