Category Archives: Dinner

  • Holiday Hangover Soup

    January 1, 2013

    26 Comments

    Holiday Hangover Soup.

    Holiday Hangover Soup.

    …and we’re back! (We had some internet issues. It turns out to be very hard to blog w/out internet access. Someone better get on that.) Happy New Year! We welcome the new year and the end of the holiday season. We love everything about the holidays, but our waistlines suggest it’s good that they only last so long. Soon it will be time for new year’s resolutions (post coming soon, backsliding soon after), but before that we get to deal with the slightly hungover bleary feelings that come with January 1st. Time for a big bowl of soup and the Rose Bowl. Go Stanford!

    hangover3hangover5We call this soup “Holiday Hangover Soup”, but we could just as easily call it “Resolution Soup”  (“Guilt Soup”?), or simply “Winter Vegetable Soup”. You could also call this soup a “Garbure”, if you want to be a bit more high-brow (we don’t). But whatever you call it, this soup combines a rich, flavorful stock and just a bit of pork with winter vegetables. It is easy to make, easy to tune to your tastes and easy to like. You get a lot of flavor and just a little fat to go with a good dose of veggies, and after the holidays most of us need a few more veggies.

    hangover6hangover7This recipe is ours, but we did develop it from a Michael Ruhlman recipe for Winter Vegetable Garbure from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”. “Ruhlman’s Twenty” is a cookbook that focuses on twenty specific techniques and/or ingredients that make up the foundation fo good cooking, and then provides a few recipes to prove the point. If you are new to cooking, this is a very solid cookbook for your collection. If you are a more experienced cook, you get some extra pointers on technique and some recipes for inspiration. Worth a look.

    hangover10hangover11What drew us to this recipe was a few tips that make our soup stock really sing. Ruhlman notes that a little tomato paste and a touch of fish sauce in the soup adds umami, while a splash of sherry vinegar supplies acidity for balance. We enhanced / changed the recipe to build the stock from smoked ham hocks and (optionally) add some Sriracha for smoke and spice notes. When you combine these flavors with crunchy, bright and sweet winter vegetables you get a winning dish. The soup is still light and healthy, but the depth of flavors almost makes it feel like a stew or chowder. This soup is a meal in one bowl. And it helps clear a fuzzy head…. Continue reading →

  • Cumin-Spiced Lamb Burgers

    December 20, 2012

    32 Comments

    lburger10

    Cumin Spiced Lamb Burger.

    This time of year, with the holidays swirling around us, we sometimes find it hard to make a regular weekday dinner. 5-course extravaganzas? No problem. Cocktail party? Sure thing. Cookie exchange? Bring it on. But we can, and do, plan for the big stuff. Daily dinner for the family with work, sports, parties, exams and constantly shifting schedules is often more tricky. But over the years we built up a few recipes that are very, very good, but don’t take up a lot of time and have a few easy ingredients (and usually don’t involve a ton of cleanup). Cumin-Spiced Lamb Burgers is one of these dishes. Just a few ingredients, one pan, a little time and a lot of flavor.

    lburger2lburger6And flavor really is the big benefit of using lamb. Lamb usually has more flavor than beef, and if you use the right cuts the flavor isn’t too “gamey”. Most lamb used to be imported from New Zealand and Australia, but these days there are many local grass-fed lamb suppliers (all over the USA) and the quality of the lamb is outstanding. With bright, clean flavor and juicy texture, lamb is worth a try. And this burger is a perfect introduction to lamb (our kids love all sorts of lamb, this was the “gateway” dish).

    lburger8lburger9Our recipe is based on the world-famous lamb burger from the Breslin gastropub in New York City. A veritable who’s-who of food writers and celebrity chefs have waxed poetic and “foodgasmed” on TV over April Bloomfield’s burger (clearly all Food Network auditions require the ability to foodgasm on command). But to be fair, this is one fine burger. And just to top it off, the Breslin sources their meat from famous butcher (and self-promoter) Pat LaFreida. Pat has a special blend just for the Breslin. Sadly, Pat doesn’t do California. Happily for us, our local butcher gets a lamb in every week or so, they break it down on site and then freshly grind the trimmings. And their blend will do just fine for us. (We also get great local beef and lamb from Stemple Creek Ranch, so good.)

    lburger12lburger7As for the recipe, it is incredibly easy to make these burgers. The Breslin’s recipe features a char-broiled rare-to-medium rare lamb patty, feta cheese, thinly sliced red onion, olive oil and seasoning on a warm Ciabatta roll. Good stuff. They also serve the lamb with cumin mayo, but we prefer to add salt and cumin directly to the meat. Cumin and lamb play very well together, but cumin is a strong flavor and you can omit if you like. We also use a cast iron skillet or grill pan on the stove (but boy would we like an indoor grill). The only real tricks in this recipe have to do with technique. You must rest the lamb burgers for 5-10 minutes after you cook them to let the juices settle in the meat, rather than running all over the plate. And if you put the slices of feta onto the patties while they rest, the cheese slightly melts on the burger. Yum. You really don’t need any sauce other than the olive oil and juices from the burger, but if you make a quick raita or cumin mayo, it will certainly taste good. And if you add a dash or two of Sriracha on top of the burger, we won’t tell…..

    lburger3 Continue reading →