Rooftop Gourmet

Spring is finally here, and it has clearly made its point by coming in like a lion; more like a pack of lions. Only a few more days of torrential downpour and flooding before Easter brings us some nice weather. Last night I was optimistic and tried to bring the lamb a few days sooner to send out the season the right way.

 I picked up two racks of lamb from Whole Foods and brought them home to start Frenching them.

Frenching is a term used to describe cutting the meat and fat off from around the bones, making them nice and clean looking; there was no tongue kissing involved.

 I liberally seasoned the racks with salt, pepper and lots of fresh rosemary before I seared them off in a screaming hot roasting pan. I wasn’t in the mood for the typical roasted potatoes or rice pilaf to accompany my lamb so I went to the dry pantry for some ideas. I found a couple of cans of Garbanzo beans, otherwise known as chick peas, and decided to make a puree.

 I tossed the chick peas in the food processor with the juice and zest of two whole lemons which gave it a nice burst of acidity and fresh flavor. I warmed the puree on the back burner while I got everything else prepped but couldn’t help dunking some old pita chips into the “hummus” while I cooked.

As well as rosemary, fresh mint is another classic herb that goes great with lamb. I wanted to serve the lamb with a fresh Spring salad to emphasize the lightness of this Easter feast.

I tossed together some pea tendrils, fresh mint leaves, parsley, and some wafer thin radishes to create a rather interesting salad. It almost looked like something the Easter Bunny would snack on. The combination of herbs and pea shoots with the spicy radishes were very pleasing. I made a quick vinaigrette in the blender with green olives, garlic, white anchovies, Dijon mustard, and more mint.

The briny, and salty olives would be a perfect topping for the gamey lamb chops, which I threw into the oven to roast.

April showers supposedly bring May flowers so I opened up a bottle of the 2006 Flowers Perennial Red Blend from Sonoma. This magnificent wine is a blend of 75% Pinot Noir, 13% Syrah, 10% Pinot Menuier, and 1% Chardonnay. It’s fruit forward and has stunning aromas of cherry and… you guessed it… flowers. Hints of dark coffee appear in between the bursting plum and strawberry fruit. Not only was the name “Flowers Perennial Red” perfect for my Spring feast, it paired perfectly with the medium rare lamb. 

The grassy notes in the meat played well with the lemony chick pea puree and the texture of the salad was fresh and crunchy. I spooned the green olive vinagriette over the warm chops and lightly tossed the Spring mix of herbs on top of the lamb’s crown. The unique blend of grapes in the Flowers Red had plenty of acidity and is a great food wine in general, especially for an Easter feast. Hopefully the rain will cease, the flowers will bloom, and we’ll send Spring out with some lamb.

With Passover approaching, I thought I’d attempt to make a Kosher for Passover meal for the first time in my life. Other than a handful of Bar Mitzvahs, a few friends, and a ‘Jews in America’ class in college, I don’t know much about Jewish tradition. I was forced to do a little research before preparing this meal and I’m afraid that after reading the Kashrut (Jewish dietary laws), I am more confused than ever.

To the best of my ability, I tried to conceptualize the restrictions and came up with a Kosher friendly version of my favorite breakfast food; Eggs Benedict. The reason that Jews only eat Matzah on Passover is because it reminds them that they didn’t have time to bake the bread when they left the slavery of Egypt. They took the unleavened bread into the hot desert where it baked under the hot sun into a thin, crisp cracker.

Prohibited unleavened breads means my English Muffins are no good to me in this dish so I was in search of a replacement.

Even though they’re more commonly seen on a Hanukkah dinner table, I decided to make potato latkes because I used to eat them at friends’ houses growing up and from what I remembered, they were delicious.

I peeled and shredded five large russet potatoes into a bowl lined with cheese cloth. You’d be surprised at how much liquid is inside of a single potato. The ‘pouch’ of potato flakes needs to be rung out before adding other ingredients or frying or else they won’t get crispy on the outside. Five potatoes yielded almost two cups of starchy water! Once we got them as dry as possible, we added a shredded onion, sliced chives, eggs, and flour to the mix. Forming the mixture into patties is tricky because everything is pretty wet, but as soon as a blob hits the hot pan, everything stays in place.

I fried the latkes on both sides to a nice golden brown and finished them in a low oven until it was time to serve. Horseradish root or other bitter ingredients are often used in Passover food preparation to remind Jews of the bitter and cruel ways that the Pharoah treated them when they were enslaved.

I dropped the Hollandaise sauce from the menu (my right forearm muscle was happy about that) and made a horseradish creme fraiche to spoon over the top of my egg.

Creme fraiche is a cultured cream, similar to sour cream but thicker and not as tart. Since bacon, ham or any pork product for that matter was out of the question, I needed a protein to layer atop a perfectly poached egg. I chose to use a smoked salmon because you don’t have to cook smoked fish, making it Kosher, and it wasn’t beef. The combination of beef and the milk in the creme fraiche sauce would have been a no-no.

I cracked open a few extra large farm fresh eggs and dropped them into a shallow pan of simmering water to poach. Whenever you’re poaching eggs, add a cap-full of white vinegar to the water; it will help the eggs hold their shape. As soon as the whites solidified, I removed the eggs with a slotted spoon and placed them on top of their matching latkes, followed by a paper thin wafer of smoked salmon, and a dollop of horseradish creme fraiche.

 I spooned some smoked Herring roe (caviar) on top of of the mock Benedict to add another smoky and salty aspect to the dish. The chives that I used to garnish the plate had been soaking in salted water because of another Passover tradition. Jews soak their vegetables in salted water to remind them of the tears that were shed during slavery in Egypt. The first bite was exhilarating as I pierced the quivering orb with a prong of my fork. The rich, buttery, yolk flowed out onto the plate and weaved its way into the tiny crevices of the potato latke. The latke was crispy an salty, the yolk was creamy, the salmon was cold and smoky, and the sauce was light with a kick of bitter heat. It was as if Sir Benedict Arnold was sitting down for brunch with King David of Isreal.

I paired this meal with a sweet wine called Moscato. The Moscato grape is famous in the town of Asti in northern Italy but this one is made by Carmel. I like Moscato because in this state, before it’s aged, it isn’t syrupy sweet; there is just a little bit of residual sugar, keeping the wine crisp on the finish. This young wine is only 5.5% alcohol because the natural sugars (which are still present in the wine… just taste it) haven’t transformed into alcohol yet. Not only is this sweet white perfect with the rich breakfast feast, it’s also Kosher for Passover.

There is a fine line between wines that are kosher and wines that are kosher for Passover. Wines that are kosher are created under a rabbi’s immediate supervision, with only Sabbath-observant Jewish males touching the grapes throughout the entire winemaking process. While all wines require some sort of mold or yeast for fermentation, kosher for Passover wines must be made from a mold that was never grown on bread. You can distinguish kosher for Passover wines by the letter P on the back label or the ‘Kasher L’Pesach’ written in Hebrew, stamped on the back as well. Kosher for Passover or not, this breakfast for dinner meal was Lelakek Et Ha’etzba’ot!

Now that we’re all settled in to our new condo and the weather was great over the weekend, it was time to break in the new kitchen and test out our new grill.

It was strange cooking in a different kitchen after making countless meals in my old apartment. I knew my old countertop, stove, and grill like the back of my hand and now everything is brand new and needs to be broken in. I walked down the street to the little Mexican restaurant on the corner of the block and picked up a dozen of their homemade tortillas.

I have had these in the past and knew that they were a hundred times better than the store bought ones. A seafood taco is one of my favorite warm weather foods. When it comes to creating a fish taco, the possibilities are endless. I have had ceviche tacos, beer battered haddock tacos, grilled snapper tacos, you name it; all of which come with a plethora of different toppings, sauces, and salsas.

No matter what I put in a fish taco, I always try to balance different flavors and textures, all while keeping the ingredients light, because that is what a fish taco is all about. Unlike its beefy cousin, a fish taco won’t leave orange grease stains on your t-shirt.

I decided to marinate some jumbo shrimp in some Ponzu (Japanese citrus marinade), dried cumin, and a few Serrano chilies for some heat. Peeling and deveining shrimp is one of the most tedious tasks you’ll ever have to do in a kitchen but I used the time to get acquainted with the new space.

I saved all of the shrimp shells and stored them in the freezer to make stock down the road. I knew that I wanted to make a crunchy slaw or salsa so in order to balance that, I needed a creamy sauce for the shrimp to sit in. I made a simple cilantro sour cream in the blender and I threw the last chili in there for some extra heat. The color of the sauce was a beautiful pastel green, and with a touch of lime juice it was perfect. Due to my heavy hand in the spicy chili department, I needed something sweet to balance it out.

I diced up a watermelon into tiny cubes because I thought the subtly sweet flavor and extreme juiciness would help refresh our tastebuds.

 Most people frown upon serving cheese with seafood, but in this case, Feta cheese was a perfect fit. Believe it or not, the milky, salty Feta combined with the sweet and juicy melon was a great combination.

I decided to make a watermelon-Feta salsa with some sliced red onion, and chives. The triple threat of the pungent onions, sweet melon, and creamy, salty cheese was delicious on its own, let alone smothered inside a taco. I fired up my new Vermont Castings grill (which the movers explained was the heaviest piece of equipment they’ve ever moved up four flights of stairs) and was instantly speechless. This bad boy has more bells and whistles that I even knew what to do with.

 The two dozen shrimp I threw on back right corner looked like ants from the top of a skyscraper. As soon as the shrimp were cooked, I threw them into the warmed tortillas with a spread of the cilantro sour cream, and a pile of the fresh salsa.

The pop of the charred, succulent shrimp in every bite, complimented by abundance of intense flavors, was sending my mouth into overdrive. I opened a bottle of 2008 Bodegas Val di Sil Godello to serve with these handheld treats. Godello is a lesser common Spanish white grape with tons of character. It is very similar to a Sauvignon Blanc; light, crisp, and refreshing.

This Godello is not overly complex but extremely pleasant and perfect with fish tacos and warm weather. The nose was slightly floral and the wine is bursting with acidity and green apple flavors. The good thing about fish tacos, is that they’re so light and healthy, you can easily find enough room for five in your stomach.

Amidst all of the unpacked boxes, and time spent icing our backs and knees from the moving process, we still found time to order a pizza and pop a house warming present. Trust me, it’s killing me staring at my new Vermont Castings monstrosity of a grill (more like an entire outdoor kitchen range) and brand new stove without whipping up something creative, but we’re just too exhausted. Literally collapsing after hours of moving and unpacking, an eleven o’clock pizza sounded like the way to go.

I ordered a half double mushroom-onion, and half bacon-olive with extra cheese on both halves. Deadly, but much deserved, and washed down smoothly by the bottle of 2000 Dom Perignon. The ferocious Champagne bubbles temporarily lifted me out of my exhaustion coma and made me alert enough to devour a few slices before passing out.

Living in South Boston during St. Patrick’s Day is a blast. Walk into the supermarket the week before and you really don’t have a choice not to cook corned beef. They’re everywhere! The line just to get up to the cabbage cart is four people deep. It was as if a monsoon was coming (I think it might have). The torrential downpour for three straight days left me no choice but to get that hunk of meat boiling away because I wasn’t leaving my kitchen.

I have to be honest, I had never made corned beef before, but how hard could it be? Boil the meat for a couple hours, slice, and serve. Those Irish know how to keep it simple. Even though corned beef and cabbage isn’t a traditional Irish meal, it is a huge part of Irish-American culture. If you want to see first hand how popular a traditional Boiled New England dinner is, pop into the East Broadway Stop & Shop on March 16th. When Irish immigrants came to America, they began curing large cuts of beef with huge salt crystals. They referred to these salt crystals as corns, which is where this American dish got its crazy name.

Since I’m moving out of my apartment tomorrow, I decided to cut my landlord some slack and opt not to boil the cabbage. The smell of boiled cabbage is pretty funky and it can linger for days. I went a more pleasant route, and roasted some brussel sprouts, a mini cabbage relative, until the outer leaves were nice and crispy.

I did toss the Yukon golds into the salty cauldron, but removed them and slathered them in butter when they were finished cooking. My Irish side wanted to keep it as traditional as possible, but my Italian side was determined to put its own spin on this dish. I wanted to make a sauce that would balance out the salt cured beef so I chose a Zabaglione, a sweet, Italian dessert. A classic Zabaglione is made by whisking egg yolks with sugar over a double boiler to incorporate as much air as possible.

Then, sweet Sicilian Marsala wine is slowly added to give the custard-like sauce its flavor. I put an Irish twist on this sauce by substituting one of my favorite Irish Whiskeys for the Marsala. Bushmills Black Bush Whiskey is a unique blend of malt whiskey that is aged in Sherry casks, and sweet batch-distilled grain whiskey.

The color of the whiskey is slightly darker than normal and has lots of nutty, dried fruits aromas and flavors from the Sherry casks. Straight up, the whiskey is impeccably smooth and has a sweet finish that lingers forever. This made it a perfect alternative to finish off my sweet Zabaglione.

When the corned beef was done, I sliced it thinly on the plate and spooned the frothy sauce over it. The Zabaglione was light and airy but extremely rich on the palate. When combined with the egg yolks and extra sugar, the Bushmills tasted like raisins and butterscotch. It was a perfect sauce to compliment the salty beef. If you want to get really corny… add some green food coloring to your Irish Whiskey Zabaglione this St. Patrick’s Day!

I am moving this week into a new condo but I am going to try to get another blog in somehow. Conviently, we bought the top floor unit and will still be the Rooftop Gourmet. Our new roofdeck is bigger and better, and the kitchen will be able to support all sorts of adventures to come, so stay tuned.