Dgourmac's Blog

The most important part of my return home yesterday from the island was my discovery of a lovely 3-lb. hunk of New Zealand lamb shoulder at Whole Foods in Bellingham.  (I also found a pretty piece of pork belly, but I haven’t gotten to that yet.)

So, tonight, after dutifully working for several hours, posting all the readings for half of my Tufts course this Fall, I returned to my lamb friend and made my dinner.  The main dish was a lamb stew from Penelope Casas’ Spanish cookbook, Delicioso!

My only editorial adjustments were to add a few dried Zante currants to the dried apricots and raisins, and some freshly-ground raw cacao beans — subtle, but successful.  Here is the result:

Served atop Thai jasmine rice, accompanied by a salad of mixed greens and beefsteak tomatoes from the first farmer’s market of the season in town this morning, this was ample reward for my hard work.  One conclusion: lamb shoulder meat is incomparable in flavor and texture.

Since the origin of the dish is purported to be Eastern Spain, I selected a 2005 Priorat, Les Terrasses for the wine.  It was good, though it was still a bit closed to match well with the dried fruit of the stew.

Wish you were here to enjoy with me.  And maybe to do the dishes.

As a fan of Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread, I decided to try some Focaccia today from his book, My Bread.  Fortunately, I was able to benefit from the guidance of another blogger who tried it; she warned me of the dangers of the bread sticking to the pan due to the potato starch in the recipe — and how to avoid it using oiled parchment paper.

My results are shown here:

Looks good!

So I did my usual thing for lunch: pig + cheese = Burratina on top of proscuitto:

Taste results were good, but not great.  The effect of the potato puree in the dough may have helped retain moisture, but it gave the impression of a potato knish in focaccia clothing — as mixed a metaphor as you will find.  I did my best to Italicize it, with the meat and cheese, and added a glass of white wine from Umbria for punctuation.  Verdict: mostly but not totally successful.  Tomorrow: let’s do pizza bianca in the wood-fired oven with David Downie’s recipe from Antico Forno in Rome.