JCC Tomo-spiced karkana ribenes - the foodies' thread

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-slow-roasted-boneless-leg-of-lam.html

So I have this in the oven right now. tl, dr version:

• Boneless butterflied leg of lamb, tied and stuffed with a cooked medley of parsley, garlic, shallots, chili flakes, anchovies, rosemary and some lemon flavoring (it calls for zest, I used a little juice). Then mixed with salt. The remainder gets rubbed on the outside.

When finished, it will rest for 30 minutes, then 500 degrees for 15m to crisp. I have a red wine to drink it with later.

Pictures forthcoming.

 

I gave it two-and-a-half stars. Above average. I liked it fine. It was a very likable movie. It just didn't really have anything to say and the main point was clearly the food porn (which was excellent, by the way) and not anything approaching real characterizations. It had a really wonderful opening, but it went too long and got less and less interesting as it went. But a two-and-a-half rating isn't a bad rating by any means; it means there are things of interest about the movie, just not enough to really justify the time. And I'm on record as saying that Favreau gives a really good performance and needs to make more movies in the vein of Chef (just, you know, a little better).

That is letting a movie off easy in my world. When I genuinely don't like a movie, you'll know it. Snowpiercer . . . now that was a movie I didn't like.

If you're into food, The Hundred Foot Journey, by the way, is better than Chef by a fairly substantial margin. And I really didn't see that coming.

 

Ranch haha

 

So here's tonight's dinner:







So, to be honest -- it was good but could have been better. A touch overcooked, so when following 275 degrees for three-hours it may need to be slightly adjusted based on leg-size (ours was about 2.5 lbs).

The wine was... amazing. Ran about $40 and worked well basically only with this type of meat (not any chocolate or fruit afterwards), so plan accordingly.

 

That looks positively awesome

 

You're making me hungry..

 

I had lamb yesterday, too; but it was not boneless. Wish we had boneless lamb here, as it's the best meat next to turkey. You are one good cook!

 

I made forty cloves of garlic chicken last night. It's one of my wife's favorite recipes, so we make it from time to time. Always delicious.

 

That looks great except I hate bones; do you think it'd lose anything to be done with boneless chicken?

 

I know here in the supermarkets if they have a butcher's section you can ask the counter staff to do stuff like deboning meat. You'll pay a bit more though. Or you could see if a local butcher's shop will do it for you.

 

Ya, I bought a more pre-packaged butterflied leg of lamb and my butcher (Ralph) tied it for me before I brought it home.

 

They do this with chicken, but not lamb. For some reason, they just...don't bother. I guess I'll have to explain that I am more or less bone-phobic. Not even to mention cartilage...yuck.

 

It will lose a lot of flavor. You can do it anyway, as what's really delicious is both the sauce and the garlic cloves (they get deliciously tender and absorb the sauce) but be ready to have to pump up the salt and pepper levels!

 

Mr. Plinkett: WHAAAAAAAT

 

You knew that!

 

Frontenac Bread - Barto's Idle Hour, Frontenac, KS



Frontenac, Kansas, is home to, besides the best fried chicken in the world, an interesting place called Frontenac Bakery. George Vacca was an Italian baker that came to Kansas to work in the coal mines; after an injury ended that career, he established the Frontenac Bakery. And for a hundred & ten years now, the bakery has operated continuously. It’s still in its original location and, get this, still uses its original stove, originally installed in 1904. So, food people passing through Frontenac make a point of grabbing some of this bread.

It’s on the menu at several of the local restaurants in Pittsburg, KS, and, of course, at Barto’s, just a couple of minutes from the bakery. So, I tried it, this legendary Frontenac bread. And it was . . . fresh bread. But not particularly good fresh bread. I mean, I’ve had awesome fresh bread. This was obviously fresh, but also just kind of average. Frontenac bread has a cool story; unfortunately, that’s the only thing that really distinguishes it. Recommended against. 2 stars.

tl;dr – historic bakery still churns out fresh bread every day, after a hundred & ten years; but with all that time, you’d expect it to be better. 2 stars.

More Food Reviews!

 

Lamb Fries - Cattleman's Steakhouse, Oklahoma City, OK



Cattleman’s has had quite a roster of distinguished guests, not least George H.W. Bush who had a favorite dish there that has now been dubbed the Presidential Cut. It’s located right down in the national stockyards in Oklahoma City, so it’s garnered fame among people from all over the country who visit the stockyards for the bi-weekly cattle auctions. The stockyards do business to the tune of the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, so Cattleman’s seems likely to stay in business for a long time. They’ve been there a hundred years and it looks like they might be for another hundred.

This place is, obviously, pricier than some of the places I’ve been and quite a bit fancier, though still with a studied rural Western atmosphere. (That’s one of the pleasures of this journey; I’ve been everywhere from tiny hole-in-the-walls to expansive meticulously designed and decorated restaurants). Anyway, I tried the Lamb Fries; I was anxious to see if my experience at Pete’s Place had been an outlier or if I just wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to eat testicles. Well, maybe both those things are true in general, but the lamb fries here were far better than the ones at Pete’s. They had their own particular flavor and the meat was incredibly tender. Once again, the breading is a big draw and it was certainly better here than at Pete’s Place, but whereas the meat there could easily have been just about anything, it was evident here that I was having a very flavorful, tender cut of meat. I liked these a lot, though I still don’t know that I’d ever go out of my way to order the lamb fries anywhere. I’m glad I’ve tried them; it’s a cultural experience of a kind, I guess. But I’d give these a recommended only if you’re particularly interested. 3 stars.

tl;dr – historic restaurant gives lamb fries a good name, but still, I think I’d rather just have a steak. 3 stars.

More Food Reviews!

 

Lamb... fries?

 

You can basically do it with anything. mavjade and I regularly go to a place with Eggplant Fries. I go to a place in Palm Beach with Avocado Fries (and have then made them at home).

Basically, anything in a "stick-like" shape and then deep-fried, with or without a coating, can be called a <thing> Fry. Like most action films after 1988 were "Die Hard on a <thing>"...

 

And let me tell you, the eggplant fries are amazing!
(Avacado fries are good too. )

 

Yes. I make them with a quick flour pat and then pressing into breadcrumbs or panko and then pan-deep frying with something like grapeseed oil (high heat, will not impart any flavor). This is one of the times to use not-quite-ripe avocados (like a day pre-ripe) as it'll hold the breadcrumbs/shape while frying and then be perfectly cooked on the inside.

Also works with skipping the light flour dusting.