Lamb with Garlic Sauce
Sep. 30th, 2007 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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icanhazrecipes
I mostly made this because we accidentally bought garlic two weeks in a row, and while we do go through garlic, we're probably not going to go through ten or so bulbs this week, so I wanted to use some up. Also on special at the supermarket this week: leg of lamb, a mere $8/kilo. So we got ourselves a nice wee 750g shank end and I came over all traditional and did a sunday roast. Like a good little baby cook I paged through my Cook's Companion (by Stephanie Alexander, my Big Cookbook, which I can't recommend highly enough; a lot of her recipes are just way too upmarket for me right now, but her sections on selection and basic how-tos are brilliant. Plus, it has a section on kangaroo meat.) There was a recipe for lamb & garlic jus which was just... way complicated, BUT there was also a suggestion for a much more simple sauce for roast lamb, so that's what I did. I was way dubious while I was making it, but! It came out great! And was gorgeous with the lamb & roast veges.
Ingredients:
8 cloves garlic
1 small onion
stock
tomato paste
wine or a wine vinegar
Instructions:
1. Peel your eight cloves and peel and chop your onion very fine.
2. In a pot, cover the garlic and onion with cold water, boil, drain off the water. Repeat twice.
3. Simmer the drained garlic and onion with a little stock and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste until the garlic is soft. I was surprised by how long this took, actually. Also, the recipe calls for lamb stock; it would probably be great for this, but who has lamb stock just lying around? Not me, that's for sure, because I fail at stocks in general and have to buy the powders. So I did it with a half cup of from-powder green herb stock, and a tablespoon of tomato sauce (ketchup) rather than paste, and it worked just fine. I probably wouldn't recommend it, though, especially the tomato sauce thing; use paste.
4. Chuck the mix into a food processor and blend until smooth, or, if you are an unlucky sod who fails to have a processor, or you're environmentally opposed to kitchen appliances, or whatever, you can put it through a sieve with the back of a spoon. This took FOREVER and was a DRAG, so if you have a processor, really use it. I have made meringue with a hand whisk, and I still found it a huge pain in the ass.
5. Chuck it in a bowl or whatever and to the side. Cook your lamb as you normally would. (I made sure to do it in a separate pan which was, in fact, really complicated, but I needed to leave the potatoes to cook longer while I did the sauce.) While the lamb is sitting, skim the fat off the juices left in the pan - I suck at this, there was a bunch of fat still left in there - and deglaze over heat with wine or wine vinegar. I used red wine vinegar, which you could definitely taste in the end product, but in a good way.
6. Chuck the garlic paste in, swirl around/heat until it's all mixed in, and it's done! Pour it over lamb or potatoes or whatever you like.
I was really pleased with the way this turned out, and my flatmate liked it, so the extra effort of sauce-making was totally worth it.
icanhazrecipesI mostly made this because we accidentally bought garlic two weeks in a row, and while we do go through garlic, we're probably not going to go through ten or so bulbs this week, so I wanted to use some up. Also on special at the supermarket this week: leg of lamb, a mere $8/kilo. So we got ourselves a nice wee 750g shank end and I came over all traditional and did a sunday roast. Like a good little baby cook I paged through my Cook's Companion (by Stephanie Alexander, my Big Cookbook, which I can't recommend highly enough; a lot of her recipes are just way too upmarket for me right now, but her sections on selection and basic how-tos are brilliant. Plus, it has a section on kangaroo meat.) There was a recipe for lamb & garlic jus which was just... way complicated, BUT there was also a suggestion for a much more simple sauce for roast lamb, so that's what I did. I was way dubious while I was making it, but! It came out great! And was gorgeous with the lamb & roast veges.
Ingredients:
8 cloves garlic
1 small onion
stock
tomato paste
wine or a wine vinegar
Instructions:
1. Peel your eight cloves and peel and chop your onion very fine.
2. In a pot, cover the garlic and onion with cold water, boil, drain off the water. Repeat twice.
3. Simmer the drained garlic and onion with a little stock and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste until the garlic is soft. I was surprised by how long this took, actually. Also, the recipe calls for lamb stock; it would probably be great for this, but who has lamb stock just lying around? Not me, that's for sure, because I fail at stocks in general and have to buy the powders. So I did it with a half cup of from-powder green herb stock, and a tablespoon of tomato sauce (ketchup) rather than paste, and it worked just fine. I probably wouldn't recommend it, though, especially the tomato sauce thing; use paste.
4. Chuck the mix into a food processor and blend until smooth, or, if you are an unlucky sod who fails to have a processor, or you're environmentally opposed to kitchen appliances, or whatever, you can put it through a sieve with the back of a spoon. This took FOREVER and was a DRAG, so if you have a processor, really use it. I have made meringue with a hand whisk, and I still found it a huge pain in the ass.
5. Chuck it in a bowl or whatever and to the side. Cook your lamb as you normally would. (I made sure to do it in a separate pan which was, in fact, really complicated, but I needed to leave the potatoes to cook longer while I did the sauce.) While the lamb is sitting, skim the fat off the juices left in the pan - I suck at this, there was a bunch of fat still left in there - and deglaze over heat with wine or wine vinegar. I used red wine vinegar, which you could definitely taste in the end product, but in a good way.
6. Chuck the garlic paste in, swirl around/heat until it's all mixed in, and it's done! Pour it over lamb or potatoes or whatever you like.
I was really pleased with the way this turned out, and my flatmate liked it, so the extra effort of sauce-making was totally worth it.
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Date: 2007-09-30 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 06:04 pm (UTC)and veges
i miss veges
no one is Asia land eats veges
no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-30 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 04:38 am (UTC)I think it'd be fine without the lamb. The idea of a sauce with lots of garlic and light amounts of tomato is appealing :-) The wine or vinegar may best be not included, though. Perhaps spice it a bit. I'll never try it, since I'm the sort of guy that'd prefer to make his own pizza crust. And I've been wanting to do that for the last year now!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 05:14 am (UTC)Really, I would think this would be quite weird without the lamb juices (at least buy fake lamb stock or something), but whatever: I really, really recommend a wine vinegar, and heating the sauce. I was really uncertain halfway through cooking it because the garlic/onion/tomato thing was really uncompelling, but the venegar and lamb made all the difference, at include the vinegar. Maybe some french seeded mustar would add something, too?