2009-10-10

Delicious Lamb or "buut Liisaaa, you saiid you looooved me"

Lately I've been craving lamb. I've also been feeling pretty lazy kitchen-wise. My solution was marinaded roasted veggies and lamb. I only used a few dishes, and made enough food for four meals.

First off is the marinaded lamb.

lamb in marinade
So the picture looks kinda gross, but it tasted great.

For the lamb marinade I combined
  • one cup nonfat Greek-style yogurt (Fage Total is awesome)
  • one clove minced garlic
  • juice of 1/2 Meyer lemon
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
  • a pinch kosher salt
I put about a pound of lamb stew meat in the marinade, cover it and got to work on the rest of the food. Next time I'd splurge for a better cut of meat, and have the butcher chunk it for me since the stew meat can be a bit dry if you don't actually cook in in a stew.

Next up were eggplant and onions.

eggplant and onion
sorry for the plastic glare

Roughly cut one medium eggplant and a large yellow onion into wedges and put in a large ziploc bag or a bowl you can toss the it all around in. I added the marinade straight into the bag one ingredient at a time, and just tossed it around a few times over the hour or so it marinaded.

Marinade for eggplant and onions:
  • 1 tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses (has a great sweet and sour earthy flavor)
  • kosher salt

Last up were the green beans and bell pepper.

beans and peppers
Beautiful beans

I marinaded one lb green beans (blossom end snapped off) and 2 or 3 large red/yellow bell peppers cut into thick strips in:
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • kosher salt
  • fresh rosemary
  • a splash red wine vinegar
This marinade didn't overpower the natural sweetness of the peppers or the beans, and the splash of vinegar really livened the whole thing up.

I let the three parts of dinner marinade away while I ran around the house being distracted by random shiny objects. (About an hour)

The first thing I cooked was the lamb, partly because meat is better if you let it rest a while after cooking, and because I was only using one baking sheet to cook everything (not just laziness, we have a small oven with only one shelf) and decided that the lamb's juices would enhance the flavor of everything else. (Mmmmm lamb juices...)

I preheated the broiler and spread the lamb out on a foil-lined high-sided baking sheet. I put it 6 inches from the broiled flipping it over after 6 or seven minutes, and cooked for about 15 minutes total, although it probably was done after 10. I still have a proclivity to overcook meat on my first try with something new, still learning after 13 years not touching the stuff.

I switched the oven to bake at 350 and moved the cooked lamb to a bowl and covered it with foil.

Next I spread out the eggplant and onions of the same baking sheet and roasted them for 15 minutes, before stirring them around and roasting longer. I think they cooked for about 1/2 hour total, stirring more often over the last 15 minutes. I scraped them off the sheet into another bowl and covered.

Last to cook were the beans and peppers I roasted them for 10 minutes on one side, stirred up and roasted another few minutes.

As I cook I try to keep a pretty close eye on the roasting veggies, because in my experience thing can go from perfect to burnt or mushy with the slightest distraction (you don't want to know how many times "it need about 45 more seconds under the broiler" has turned into "oh shit where is all that smoke coming from!?")

I made a really quick tzatziki to serve the food with.
  • 1/2 cup Greek-style yogurt
  • 1/2 large cucumber (skin on) finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • juice 1/4 meyer lemon
  • 1 or 2 finely chopped mint leaves
  • tbsp chopped fresh basil
  • 1/4 tsp dried dill
The combo of herbs I used isn't totally traditional, but it's what I had on hand, and ended up tasting great.

To serve I put the lamb and veggies on some white rice, and topped with a scoop of the tzatziki.

lamb, tzatziki & roasted vegetables
the finished product

Yum!

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