This has to be one of the brightest dishes I have made in flavor as well as color. It is said that we eat with our eyes first, and I have to say that this looked absolutely delicious. The brightness of the sauce and roasted peppers along with the parsley is just amazing.
Roasted Red Peppers seem to be all the rage right now in the world of cooks. Or maybe it is just me, but I have noticed more recipes recently that feature roasted red peppers. And why wouldn’t they, they are sweet and smokey and oh so easy to work with.
The first time I made this I made it as a side dish, but after making it, I would even go so far as to say that you can serve this as a main dish. This is supposed to serve up to six people and I think it could have fed more than that-especially when served as a side dish.
I wouldn’t recommend this if you were cooking for just two people unless you cut the recipe back by quite a bit. Don’t worry if you don’t have a food processor. I used my blender instead and it worked just as well. And as long as you use white wine instead of the stock, this recipe is a purely vegetarian dish.
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February 26, 2008
Recently I went on a lamb ‘kick’. I don’t recall why it started, most probably because I saw something on the telly. When I go on these ‘kicks’ I tend to talk about them a lot; so it wasn’t surprising when I asked my mother for suggestions for her birthday dinner that she said lamb.
After much deliberation I settled upon a recipe that I felt she would like. So off to Whole Foods I went to purchase the lamb chops. The meat counter at Whole Foods is one of my favorite places to shop for meat. It reminds me of the butcher shops in Germany and there is something about bringing home meat wrapped in butcher paper. Unfortunately, on the day that I went they didn’t have any rack of lamb left so I ended up substituting shoulder lamb chops.
The broiled lamb chops went excellently with the caramelized fennel and pancetta salad that I made. The balsamic vinegar reduction tied everything together with its sweet/tart flavor.
The only change I would make the next time I make it is reducing the balsamic reduction. For the amount of lamb there simply was too much of it and seemed rather wasteful. Especially since you don’t want to drown the meat in it but simply drizzle it.
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February 26, 2008
For my Mother’s birthday this year I decided to cook a meal for her. This was one of the first recipes I thought of when I started forming a menu. The first time I heard of it was while watching Giada De Laurentiis on the Food Channel. I tend to collect recipes from food shows and this one looked and sounded so good that I stored it in my recipe note book to make as soon as I could. So naturally when I came across it again I decided that my mother’s birthday would be a wonderful time to make it.
Fennel: Florence fennel, also called finocchio, is cultivated throughout the Mediterranean and in the United States. It has a broad, bulbous base that’s treated like a vegetable. Both the base and stems can be eaten raw in salads or cooked in a variety of methods such as braising, sautéing or in soups. The fragrant, graceful greenery can be used as a garnish or snipped like dill and used for a last-minute flavor enhancer. –Copyright (c) 1995 by Barron’s Educational Series, from The New Food Lover’s Companion, Second Edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst
Never having actually cooked with Fennel (discounting Fennel Seeds of course), I had a hard time finding it in the grocery store I shop at on a regular basis. This called for a trip to Whole Foods. If we could not find it there then I would have to make a trip to Central Market. Thankfully, it did not come to that.
One of the first things I noticed while working with Fennel was the strong licorice scent. As Licorice is one of the few flavors that I am not overly fond of I was afraid that it might be overpowering in the salad. I needn’t have worried. I believe the roasting process and the brown sugar served to cut the strong licorice flavor. At the end of dinner we actually picked through the salad to eat the remaining fennel.
There were very few things I would do differently when it comes to the preparation of this salad. I recommend roasting the fennel on its own for the first 10 minutes then adding the pancetta towards the end. This would be to ensure a nice caramelized coloring of the pancetta instead of a something that looks burned (though it tasted just as good as the rest) especially if the slices of pancetta you are working with are fairly thin.
Timing is everything for this salad. You want to be able to serve the salad while the pancetta and fennel are still warm (though it tastes wonderful cooled as well) which makes things tricky when you have other dishes to finish and want to serve it well before the main course.
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February 26, 2008
Ingredients:
Food. Wonderful and absolutely glorious food!
Friends & Family
Love
Combine my love of cooking for friends and family (and even strangers truthfully) with my desire to share these experiences with anyone that will listen and you come up with this blog. So sit back and relax, have a cup of coffee or a soda. Enjoy the food when it comes out.
February 26, 2008
