Meatballs

............so probably, you being a normal person and all, you would eat these with "spaghetti" and "sauce", but I figure it's a little more approachable to do part of a recipe at a time than a whole meal.  Feel free to use your own sauce, sauce out of a jar, whatever you want!  It's all good.

I realize that this is one of the uglier photos I've taken, but come on, it's meatballs. 

The best thing about these meatballs is that they still have pork sausage, which makes it spicy, salty, and have that fatty mouth feel, but that the OTHER half is very very lean turkey.  Effectively, you have the best of both worlds, and can pretend in your head that it's diet food.  

In the sad and ignorant past, T and I used to pan fry the meatballs before adding to sauce for better looks and taste (throwing them directly into sauce ends up in them breaking all over the place and as well as a boiled, colorless exterior), but we eventually settled on broiling them for a few minutes instead.  This gives them a beautiful golden brown color, as well as the structural integrity to be finished off in the sauce!

Portobello Marsala

Does anyone know how to spell portobello? Portabella?! I don't know.

This recipe was actually supposed to be chicken marsala for dinner tonight, but I forgot to defrost the chicken and so now all we have are mushrooms. Which turned out to be just fine.

Marsala (not be confused with masala, a blend of spices commonly used in Indian and SE Asian cuisine) is a fortified wine, which I have never in my life had as a beverage. In fact, the only marsala I've ever purchased has been in the cooking section of the supermarket, which has salt and other things added to it, rendering it undrinkable. It has a distinctive taste and is not really substitutable with red or white wine. It goes great with mushrooms, and as you will see, I used whatever I had at home, but you can use whatever crazy combinations of mushrooms you have - button, cremini, portobello, you name it.

Ingredients:

:: 2 portobello caps, thinly sliced and cut into thirds or bite-sized pieces

:: 1/2 pound creminis, stems removed, thinly sliced
:: 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
:: 2 tbsp olive oil
:: 2 tbsp butter
:: 1/2 onion or 2 shallots, chopped
:: 2 tbsp flour
:: 1/2 cup marsala wine

:: 1 cup chicken stock

:: 1/4 cup heavy cream or half-and-half (optional)

:: handful parsley, chopped (optional)

:: 1/2 box pasta, I like linguine!

Boil a giant pot of water, salt it, and cook pasta according to the box directions.

Melt olive oil and butter over medium heat. And no, I am not crazy for using both. Butter tastes great, but the milk solids burn. Adding the oil allows you to cook at higher heat without that being a big issue. Let the garlic cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. Add onion or shallots, cook until soft, about 5 minutes.

Add in all the mushrooms and cook until they begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Usually, when making chicken or veal marsala, the cutlets are dredged in flour, seared, and then liquid is poured on top. The flour serves not only to give the meat a nice brown sear, but also helps to thicken the sauce. Since I am skipping this step (which you are more than welcome to do!), I added in 2 tbsp flour to the mushrooms and cooked it a little longer so that when the liquids are added in, they will thicken into a nice creamy sauce.

Looks like a lot of mushrooms, doesn't it? They cook down to virtually nothing!

I hope you're salting and pepper-ing along the way!

Pour in wine, deglaze the pan and scrape up any brown bits. Turn up to high heat and let boil for 30 seconds. Pour in chicken stock, let cook for another 5-10 minutes until the sauce thickens. You can add in cream at this stage if you are using it, or a little more wine if the marsala flavor has been diluted. Parsley goes in at the very end, right before you serve this to the table.

Grated cheese? Yes, please!

I've also served this over simple garlic mashed potatoes. Yum!

Braised Lamb Shank

Ohh, lamb. I grew up never eating lamb because 5/6 members of my immediate family thought it was gross. I finally stopped whining long enough to taste it, and my life was forever changed. Now the lamb-lovers in my family number 3/6 (me, my sister, my dad)- not a bad improvement from just 1!

Since I've been staying at my parents' house as a mini vacation for the last two weeks, and since my dad, my sister and I don't usually get the chance to eat it (it's not fun cooking all day for yourself!), we've made this dish twice in 12 days. Too much saturated fat, you say? Probably.

Lamb shanks are delicious, especially when cooked like this. The bone marrow adds a rich unctuousness to the tomato sauce, and perfumes the whole stew with a lamb-y taste. Lamb shank is probably not the least gamey of cuts, and this dish has pretty concentrated flavors, so keep that in mind if serving it to the lamb-naive.

Braised Lamb Shank

(Serves 4-6 as an entree)

Ingredients:
:: 4 lamb shanks, total 3.5-4 pounds, rinsed, and patted dry
:: 1/2 cup flour (optional)
:: 8 cloves garlic, chopped
:: 3 carrots, cut into fourths
:: 3 stalks celery, cut into fourths
:: 1 1/2 onion, chopped into 1 inch pieces
:: 28 oz. canned whole peeled tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
:: 2 cups red wine
:: 3 cups water
:: 1 tall stockpot
:: 2 sprigs rosemary
:: 10-15 sprigs thyme

This is obviously pre-food prep stage. The thyme and rosemary are sitting on top of the "spice sack" I use to keep my herbs separated from the actual edible portions of the dish. The spice sack is a glorified cotton bag with a drawstring that you can just throw into the pot.

Throw the celery and carrots into a food processor or blender with just enough water to keep the blade from blending air. You'll have a slurry like this, but with hopefully less water than my enthusiasm resulted in.

Liberally salt and pepper the shanks and dust them in a light coat of flour. You can skip the flour step, but I like the way it helps to brown the meat.




In a wide pan, add a tablespoon or so of oil, just enough to keep the lamb from sitting on any dry spots. Brown about 3 minutes on each side. Be patient! I don't mean "give the meat a tan", I mean brown it! Set it aside while you cook the veggies.









Cook the carrot slurry and garlic in 1 tablespoon of oil until the liquid is cooked out.






Add in the onions with another tablespoon of oil and saute for a while. You want the vegetables to start to caramelize and brown. Hopefully you can see little specks of brown forming in this picture.


Add in the tomatoes and red wine. Cook about 15 minutes or until the sauce is somewhat reduced (I can never tell how much "reduce by half" really means...). Now, I am typically not a tomato snob, but when making a special dinner like this where the flavors become concentrated, I think it's worth the splurge for San Marzano tomatoes. I don't know how they're different, except for that they are from Italy and are many times more delicious than normal tomatoes (which I choose 99% of the time over San Marzanos purely for cost reasons.)

This is where you can add in other "spices" besides thyme and rosemary. I was rummaging through the pantry when I found a lamb rub I had made for father's day a couple years ago. (yeah, yeah, I know, throw your spices out after 6 months.....)

I wish I remembered what went into it but it was some combination of coriander, cumin, allspice, salt, pepper, garlic, cinnamon, and nutmeg that I had run through a coffee grinder. Those are at least the ingredients that I recall. Adding these obviously changes the flavor of the dish a lot and makes it taste more Moroccan in flavor, but using the thyme and rosemary as stand alone spices is great, also!



Now you'll need the large stockpot. You will want to cover the lamb shanks with liquid and since they are so long, cooking 4 requires a tall pot. You could probably get away with a 4-qt saucepan if cooking 2 shanks, but remember that not only must you be able to jam them in, but you will also need to cover them with a lid. I had no rulers lying around, so the most standard unit of measure I could come up with is that I used a stockpot at least 1.5 McDonald's Apple Pies tall. Throw the lamb in the pot and pour the tomato mixture over it. The shanks will be sticking out of the liquid.

Cover the shanks with water, about 3 cups. Throw in your thyme and rosemary.

Pop the lid on, and into a 400 degree oven it goes. You can check up on it every hour or so if you, like me, have an insatiable curiosity to see how your food is looking. Cook it for about 3 hours, or until its tenderness is to your liking.

Tada! I ate mine today with sun-dried tomato and toasted pine nut quinoa, because sometimes I do like to eat healthy things :)