Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
Saveur: The New Comfort Food (19 page)
Deeply flavored and fragrant, curry pastes are a mainstay of Thai cuisine. A combination of varying amounts of chiles, spices, and aromatics like lemongrass and galangal that are crushed or pounded together until smooth, curry pastes are fried in coconut cream or oil, or whisked into boiling broth or coconut milk, to flavor dishes. There are five principal kinds of curry paste, each containing an ingredient or combination of ingredients that defines their appearance and flavor: yellow (includes turmeric), green (made with Kaffir lime leaves and rind, cilantro, and green chiles), red (full of dried red chiles), panang (flavored with peanuts), and massaman (pounded with warm spices like clove, cardamom, and cumin). All are available in Asian and specialty stores, as well as on the Internet, in jars and vacuum-sealed bags. One of our favorite brands in the saveur test kitchen is Mae Ploy.
Owner Peter Servedio assists customers at Peter’s Meat Market, a butcher shop on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, New York.
Whether it’s a juicy burger straight off the grill or some beautiful lamb chops we brought home from the butcher shop, our love of meat is all-consuming. This is food we treat ourselves with: a plate of meatballs braised in a rich tomato sauce; a flank steak, left to tenderize overnight in a spicy marinade, then grilled until it’s charred at the edges and reddish-pink in the middle; a chicken fried steak, with its crispy coating and creamy gravy. At once nuanced and straightforward, these dishes sate us in an almost primal way.
Bracing mint cuts through lamb’s richness. Cooks in Spain and Italy often combine mint with anchovies, red chile flakes, garlic, capers, and other herbs in a vibrant salsa verde like this one, a bold match for seared lamb chops.
4 1-inch-thick lamb loin chops (about 1 lb.) or frenched lamb rib chops
2 tbsp. plus ¾ cup extravirgin olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 cups loosely packed fresh mint leaves, minced
½ cup minced flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 tbsp. minced fresh tarragon leaves
1 tbsp. salt-packed capers, soaked, rinsed, and minced
¼ tsp. crushed red chile flakes
6 oil-packed anchovy filets, drained and minced
1 clove garlic, minced
Serves 2
1. Put the lamb chops into a small baking dish, rub with 2 tbsp. oil, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside to rest for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, make the salsa verde: Combine the mint, parsley, tarragon, capers, chile flakes, anchovies, and garlic in a medium bowl. Slowly drizzle in the remaining oil while stirring with a fork; set aside.
3. Build a medium-hot fire in a charcoal grill or set a gas grill to medium-high heat. (Alternatively, heat a cast-iron grill pan over medium-high heat.) Add the lamb chops and cook, turning once, until well browned and crusty and cooked to the desired doneness, 6-8 minutes for medium rare if using loin chops; about 4 minutes if using rib chops. Transfer the lamb chops to a platter. Stir the sauce and drizzle over the chops, reserving some of the sauce to serve on the side.
The flavor and the texture of lamb can differ considerably from place to place, reflecting everything from what the animals eat to the physical characteristics of particular breeds. Because sheep farming remains a small industry in the United States when compared with those of beef and pork, your local supermarket is as likely to carry cuts of lamb raised in Australia or New Zealand—the world’s top lamb-exporting countries—as it is fresh domestic meat. Most New Zealand lamb is almost entirely pasture fed, usually in fields rich with ryegrass and clover, which accounts for the meat’s characteristic leanness. Because New Zealand lambs come to market very young, typically at only six or seven months of age, they have smaller frames that yield petite, tender rib chops. Australian lamb, though it’s slaughtered when a bit older, has a milder taste and richer marbling—the results of both breeding and the fact that the animals are sometimes fed grain during the last weeks of their lives. Free-range, grassfed Icelandic lamb is exceptionally fine-grained and mild tasting; it is prized by chefs and increasingly sold in the United States at stores like Whole Foods Market. Most varieties of American lamb are crossbred from wool breeds like Columbia and meat breeds such as Suffolk and are raised in the high rangelands of the Western states. Colorado lamb, one of the predominant domestic varieties, is pasture fed and given a diet of corn before slaughter to make it yield princely cuts of richly marbled meat.
Gigot de Sept Heures
Roasting a leg of lamb for a full seven hours in wine with garlic and herbs leaves the meat ultratender; white beans stewed with thyme, cloves, and onion and finished with crème fraîche are a luxurious accompaniment. This recipe was given to us by Parisian home cook Camille Labro (pictured at center of top left photograph), who learned it from her Provençale mother.
FOR THE LAMB:
1 4-lb. shank end leg of lamb or 4-lb. piece of shoulder, trimmed
3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 750-ml bottle dry white wine
20 cloves garlic, unpeeled
10 sprigs each fresh thyme, rosemary, and savory
5 fresh or dried bay leaves
FOR THE BEANS:
2 cups dried white beans, preferably cannellini or white coco, soaked overnight
5 cloves garlic, smashed
3 sprigs fresh thyme and parsley and a bay leaf tied together with kitchen twine
10 whole cloves
1 large onion, halved Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp. crème fraîche
Serves 6-8
1. Cook the lamb: Heat the oven to 300°F. Rub lamb with oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Heat a 6-qt. Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add lamb and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 12 minutes. Transfer lamb to a plate. Add wine and 2 cups water to the Dutch oven; scrape up browned bits from bottom of pot. Nestle garlic and herbs into a large oval casserole and place lamb on top of herbs. Carefully pour in pan juices and wine from Dutch oven and cover lamb with foil. Transfer to oven and roast, basting frequently, for 3 ½ hours.
Uncover, flip lamb, and continue to cook, basting frequently, until lamb is very tender, 3-3 ½ more hours. Transfer to a rack and let cool for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the beans: About 1½ hours before the lamb is done, drain beans and transfer to a 4-qt. saucepan along with 4 cloves garlic, the herb bundle, and 6 cups water. Pierce the onion with the cloves and add to the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until beans are tender, about 1 hour. Remove pot from heat and season with salt and pepper. Discard herbs and strain beans, reserving cooking liquid. Transfer 2 cups beans, ¼ cup cooking liquid, oil, crème fraîche, and remaining garlic clove to a blender and purée. Stir puréed bean mixture and about 1 cup of the cooking liquid back into pot and cover to keep warm until lamb is cooked. Serve the lamb sliced or torn into chunks, alongside the beans.
Flank steak, also known as London broil, isn’t the most tender cut of beef, but it is one of the most flavorful. The key to getting a tender flank steak is to let the meat marinate for a good, long time—in this case, in a mixture of red wine, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, various spices, and fresh rosemary—and then carve it across the grain into thin slices before serving.
1 tbsp. black peppercorns
1 tbsp. coriander seeds
1 tbsp. fennel seeds
2 dried chiles de árbol, broken
2 bay leaves
½ cup red wine
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 tbsp. Worcestershire
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 2-lb. flank steak Kosher salt, to taste
Serves 4
1. Toast the peppercorns, coriander, fennel, chiles de árbol, and bay leaves in a small skillet over high heat, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, 2-3 minutes. Transfer the aromatics to a hard surface, lightly crush them with the bottom of a heavy skillet, then transfer them to a 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
2. Add the wine, vinegar, Worcestershire, garlic, rosemary, and olive oil to the baking dish and whisk to combine. Prick the steak all over with a fork, place it in the marinade and spoon some marinade over the top. Cover and refrigerate, turning occasionally, for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours.
3. An hour before grilling, transfer the steak to a plate, season with salt, and set aside at room temperature. Transfer the marinade to a small pot and bring just to a boil; set aside.
4. Build a medium-hot fire in a charcoal grill or set a gas grill to medium-high heat. Grill the steak, turning once and, using a brush, basting with the reserved marinade occasionally, until browned and medium rare, 7-8 minutes per side. Transfer the steak to a cutting board, tent with foil, and let rest for about 10 minutes. Carve the steak into thin slices across the grain and serve with any accumulated juices.
A cowboy rides herd at La Cense ranch, an 88,000 acre grass-fed cattle operation in Dillon, Montana.