Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

GROWING AND USING HORSERADISH

Posted: October 18, 2012 in Food, garden, horseradish, Recipes
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Horseradish just doesn’t get the credit it deserves. A world without horseradish would mean boring Bloody Mary’s, cocktail sauces with no kick, and steaks and roast beef sandwiches just crying out for sauces and mayos with personality.

Horseradish is a perennial plant from the Brassicaceae family, which also includes mustard, wasabi, broccoli, and cabbage. It’s mainly grown for its white tapered root, which, when not disturbed, has little aroma. But when you cut or grate it, enzymes from the damaged plant cells release oils that give horseradish that wonderful pungent smell and flavor. It loses this pungency just as quickly, unless you store it in vinegar, which is why bottled or “prepared” horseradish is always found in a vinegar solution.

In the garden, horseradish can become invasive, meaning it will want to take over if you let it, but in my garden, it doesn’t get to do that because I regularly harvest a couple of roots for my kitchen.

 

Horseradish in the garden

Growing up in a Lithuanian family, there were very few spices ever used in cooking. Most of the food was pretty bland. Mom would salt food, but even black pepper was pretty rare. Peppers of any kind were never used–they never grew in Lithuania–so horseradish became the universal ingredient when a kick was needed. My grandfather loved it. I can still remember my grandfather crying his eyes out as he grated a freshly picked horseradish root from his garden. It was absolutely a labor of love. He would keep his grated horseradish in vinegar in the fridge, and then when dinner came around, it would quickly find its way to the table next to just about any meat my grandmother was cooking.

These days, with food processors in just about any kitchen, there’s no excuse not to use fresh horseradish. Your nasal passages and eyeballs are safe from being blown out.

Some of the basic applications for horseradish are still the best. The following recipes use prepared horseradish you easily find in the supermarket, but use fresh if you have it.

 

A freshly harvested horseradish root

For a simple horseradish mayo:

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons prepared horseradish
Combine both ingredients in a bowl, cover with plastic, and refirgerate. Goes great on a roast beef sandwich.

 

For a fancier horseradish sauce that goes great on grilled salmon:

3/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons prepared horseradish

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, cover with plastic, and place in fridge for a few hours for the flavors to blend.

 

 

Alz cocktail sauce

2 cups ketchup

4 Tablespoons prepared horseradish

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

½ teaspoon Tabasco

5 grinds of fresh black pepper

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vodka

Combine all ingredients. Store in a tight plastic container in the freezer. Thanks to the vodka, my cocktail sauce never freezes solid, so just scoop out what you need and let it thaw.


ROASTING CHIOGGAS!

Posted: October 16, 2012 in beets, garden, Recipes
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I love beets, but this variety I grow in my garden every year is special. They’re mild, they don’t bleed, the greens are delicious, and…look at ’em: they’re gorgeous! The variety is called Chiogga, and I highly recommend it in anyone’s veggie garden.

To roast, I simply wash the beets and cut them into smaller pieces. I place them on a sheet of aluminum foil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little EVOO, fold the foil over the beets to make a packet, and roast at 350 for about an hour or until they are fork-tender.

I HAVE DISCOVERED PIZZA GREATNESS, AND IT’S CALLED MONTANARA

Posted: October 14, 2012 in Food, Italian, montanara, pizza, Recipes, Rhode Island, Uncategorized
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Sad to say, but despite the large Italian community we have here in Rhode Island, there is no truly excellent pizza to speak of. I suppose you could say “them’s fightin’ words!” but if it’s here, I haven’t found it yet.
So where is the excellent pizza? New York City, of course. OK…maybe I’m a bit prejudiced because I grew up there and worked in a variety of pizzerias in my younger days, but there is no doubt in my mind that if you want the best pizza (or bagel, for that matter), you have got to go to the Big Apple. Everything else is simply a bad copy.
It can be confusing in New York City as there are many different varieties of pizza to choose from, some much better than others. Brick oven pizzas abound, but there are pizza lovers who won’t settle for anything less than a pizza baked in a coal-fired oven. The extremely high heat of a coal-fired oven cooks the pizza in just a minute, and imparts a crusty, charred flavor you can’t get any other way. There are only about a dozen coal-fired pizzerias in Manhattan, and many of them have been around for over 100 years, so it’s definitely a matter of making a special trip to enjoy this style of pizza. (No new coal-fired pizzerias can be built in the city, due to more recent strict pollution control laws.)
There’s the traditional thin, round Neopolitan pie, and the thicker, square Sicilian pie. Regular mozzarella or mozzarella di bufala. Domestic or imported cheese?
Many choices, but always the same answer: it’s a matter of personal taste.
But when I heard through the pizza lovers’ grapevine that there was a “new” pizza out there, one that was gaining a cult following, I needed to know about it. And more importantly, I needed to taste it!
It’s called Pizza Montanara, and there are only a few pizzerias in New York City that serve it. The one I went to is called Pizzarte, on West 55th St, and I have to say that I have now discovered the ultimate pizza.
What makes Pizza Montanara so spectacular, quite simply, is that the dough is fried in oil before they put the sauce and cheese on it, and then it is baked in a wood burning oven. It is not greasy. In fact, the frying process, which lasts only a minute, puffs the dough up and creates a beautiful pillow-like softness that I have never experienced in a pizza before.
Pillowy goodness! Its rectangular shape is probably due to the fact that they fry it in a restaurant deep fryer.
The pizza was so good that once my wife and I ate the first pie, we ordered another. Then when it was time for us to drive home from New York, we stopped at Pizzarte and ordered two to go, which we devoured by the time we got to the Connecticut border!
The Montanara is a simple pizza margherita: dough, super-fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella di bufala, topped with a fresh basil leaf. But the frying process creates a magical treat that has got me drooling all over this blog as I write it.
It’s so good, that just a few days after returning from the city, I made my first attempt at creating a montanara pizza at home. My result: pretty successful! A little crunchier than Pizzarte’s montanara, but with a little tweaking, I may just get the hang of this thing!
A little rounder (I fried it in a pan) and I sprinkled oregano on top instead of the fresh basil leaf. But not a bad first attempt!
I’m going to back to Manhattan for Thanksgiving weekend, and pizza montanara is the first food on my list!

WHEN IT COMES TO COCKTAILS, HERBACEOUS = DELICIOUS

Posted: October 12, 2012 in Cocktails, Coppa, drink recipes, Drinks, mixology, Recipes
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I love cocktails that are full of herbaceousness. (Got that right without spell check!)

So whenever my wife and are dining in a higher-end restaurant, where we see that mixology matters to them as much as the food, we take advantage of their knowledgeable bartenders and have them create something special for us to try.

Coppa is my second favorite restaurant in Boston–Toro being at the top of the list–and both are part of the Ken Oringer empire, with head chef Jamie Bissonette at the helm. Both also take pride in their cocktails, and this one from Coppa, named “Hey Neon,” is a personal favorite that I regularly re-create at home for myself.

The Coppa finished drink:

 

HEY NEON, BOTH WAYS
1.5 oz Aalborg aquavit

.75 oz Punt e Mes

.5 oz Cynar

.5 oz green Chartreuse

Finely minced, dehydrated kalamata olives

 

Combine the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with some ice. Stir briskly and pour (straining the ice) into a rocks glass rimmed with the minced kalamata olives.

 

My version of the cocktail:

 

I tried mincing and dehydrating the kalamata olives, like they do at Coppa. But the oils in the olives kept them from drying out enough–maybe I was just too impatient for a drink! And I couldn’t get the minced olives to stick to the rim of my glass.
My solution was pretty simple: pour the drink into a martini glass and serve with a skewer of kalamatas. Works for me!

 

 

SCIUE-SCIUE IS ABOUT AS CLOSE TO FAST FOOD AS THE ITALIANS GET

Posted: October 10, 2012 in Capri, fleur de sel, Food, Italian, pasta, Recipes, sciue sciue
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Fast food is a relative term. What we Americans think of as fast food is not what, say, the Italians think of as fast food. We think of drive-thru burger joints serving greasy, salty and fatty food. Swallow a burger, pop a Crestor. The Italians think fast food is something that simply doesn’t take all day to cook! If you can use the freshest of ingredients, and serve it in the time it takes to sip a half a bottle of wine while chatting with a friend, it’s fast food Italian-style.
Years ago, when my wife and I were visiting the island of Capri in Italy, one of the dishes we enjoyed was an incredibly simple pasta and tomato dish called spaghetti sciue-sciue (pronounced “shwee-shwee.”) We were told that sciue-sciue was loosely translated as “quick-quick,” although a check on the web said that it also translates to “improvisation” in Italian. And though quick it was (that is, by Italian standards), it was one of the most memorable dishes we had on our trip. It could be because of our surroundings: the famous Faraglioni rocks all around us at a small seaside restaurant called Da Luigi. We took the small shuttle boat from Marina Piccola, which made its way through those stacks jutting out of the Bay of Naples, and landed at this historic restaurant, built in 1936. People come here not only to dine, but to spend the day sunbathing and swimming.
So the reason Da Luigi’s sciue-sciue was so amazing certainly was, in part, the location…but it was also very much due to the use of the freshest and best possible ingredients…and they didn’t mess around with them too much.
With the growing season coming to a close here in New England, there’s still a chance to get some beautiful ripe tomatoes at local farmstands for this recipe. This version of spaghetti sciue-sciue, our own home-made twist on what we had in Italy, absolutely takes advantage of what’s left of the season!

The ingredients. Yes, so I used lo-carb pasta!

OUR PASTA SCIUE-SCIUE
Ingredients:
1 small can (6 oz) tomato paste
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 hot Italian dried peppers, finely chopped
¼ cup white wine
8 to 10 chopped plum or cherry tomatoes (as ripe as possible)
12 to 15 torn fresh basil leaves
½ stick (4 oz) unsalted butter
1 ball of fresh mozzarella
1 lb of spaghetti, or better yet, bucatini
Sea salt
Fleur de Sel (optional)
Heat a large pot of salted water to boil the pasta in.
Almost burn—as in “heavily caramelize”—the tomato paste in a large pan with the olive oil, salt, and the dried peppers. Add the white wine to de-glaze, and simmer until reduced by half.
Add the chopped tomatoes and simmer on medium heat until they start to break apart. Hand tear the mozzarella ball into shreds and add to the sauce, stirring gently. Add the basil.
Add the butter, gently stirring until it melts.
When the pasta is slightly firmer than al dente, drain it and add it to the pan with the sauce.
Serve immediately, finishing with a little Fleur de Sel.

Finito!

SAUERKRAUT: FORGOTTEN SUPERFOOD

Posted: October 9, 2012 in barbecue, lactic, probiotic, Recipes, sauerkraut, superfoods
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In a world where buzz words like “probiotics” rule every food product marketing campaign, comes word that good ol’ sauerkraut is actually really good for your health! Who knew? Apparently, some have for many years. 

Lactic acid and beneficial bacteria…those are the two main ingredients that make sauerkraut so good for you. Lactic acid fermented foods such as sauerkraut have made up a significant portion of food eaten by humans for a long time and still do in many developing countries. Lactic acid fermentation is one of the simplest and safest ways of preserving food. 

Archaeological digs have found that mankind has used this technique for thousands of years. (Korean kimchi is a perfect example.) Our forefathers must have consumed large numbers of live lactic acid bacteria in their daily diets. So it seems logical to think that the human gastrointestinal tract has evolved over the years to adapt to a regular supply of live lactic acid bacteria. But this supply slowed down or even stopped in industrialized countries during the 20th century, which may have led to the enormous increase in gastrointestinal and immunological problems that plague us today. 

Here are just a few of the benefits of eating sauerkraut: it provides vitamin C…it reduces bloating and pain to those stricken with irritable bowel syndrome…it significantly helps aid in the digestion of starches and proteins found in soy and grains…and lots, lots more. 

Sauerkraut has been used for hundreds of years to help cure upset stomachs and to increase beneficial flora in the intestinal tract.
It’s amazing how we’ve forgotten about so many things that kept us healthy naturally. Our crazy lifestyles deplete all the beneficial building blocks our bodies need, and then we think we need to take pills and supplements to get them back. All we really need is to eat the right foods again. 

So next time you grab a hotdog, ask for extra sauerkraut! Maybe the dog isn’t the best thing for you, but you can certainly justify the kraut! 

I love the taste of sauerkraut as is. But here’s a recipe that takes it to a whole new level. I make gallon-sized batches of the stuff when I have a cookout in the yard, but this recipe has been reduced to a quarter of that for normal home use. 

1 package (32 oz) sauerkraut
1/4 lb bacon, chopped
1 large sweet onion, finely chopped
salt and sugar to tasteOpen the package of sauerkraut and drain it in a colander. wash the sauerkraut with water to remove the brine. Let drain again.

In a large sauce pan, fry the chopped bacon until just crispy. Don’t drain the fat! Add the onions and cook until they are translucent. Then add the sauerkraut and cook over medium heat until the sauerkraut has caramelized. This could take up to 30 minutes. Stir often.
If you see the sauerkraut sticking to the pot, add a little olive oil.

At the end, add a little salt and a touch of sugar, to taste.

SAUSAGE 101: MAKING MY OWN

Posted: October 4, 2012 in Food, pork, Recipes, sausage, Uncategorized
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Sausage, like bacon, is magical. It contains but a handful of simple ingredients. But when you mix them together, they form a truly flavorful food that is far more than the sum of its parts.
What has always kept me from trying to make my own sausage at home was that it seemed like a very complex process, from mixing and grinding all the ingredients, to stuffing them into casings. But then I thought about it: most of the time when I cook sausage at home, I remove the casings beforehand anyway…so why put them into casings in the first place? Once I realized I didn’t have to deal with the hassle of stuffing casings, making sausage became something I knew I really wanted to try.
The best book for anyone interested in making their own sausage, bacon, salami and more is called “Charcuterie,”by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. It shows you step-by-step how make these meaty creations, and I used their basic garlic sausage recipe to make my first-ever batch, though I did add a tweak of my own.This recipe makes a 5 lb batch of sausages…enough for you to pig out for some time, and still have enough to share with your friends.
Cutting the pork and bacon pieces into small cubes that grind more easily.
Ingredients:A total of 5 lbs of pork, containing 25% to 30% fat. I used lean pork loin, and then added pork fat to bring the fat level to around 30%. My special tweak was to include a half-pound of my home-made bacon (a future blog), to add some salt and smoky flavor.

3 Tablespoons kosher salt

1 Tablespoon ground black pepper

2 Tablespoons fresh finely minced garlic

1 cup chilled good red wine…I used Pinot Noir

It’s important to use at least 25% fat (or you’ll have dry, tasteless sausage) and I keep the meat as cold as possible at all times, so that the fat doesn’t break down or melt. I chop the meat and fat into small-sized bits that will be easier to grind…place them in a bowl, adding the salt, pepper and garlic. I mix the ingredients really well, place in a Ziploc bag, and store in the refrigerator overnight to chill and marinate.
The next day, I set up the grinder, keeping the meat in the fridge until the last minute. I have a Kitchen Aid mixer with a grinding attachment that does a great job of grinding the sausage. Using the smaller die, I grind the contents of the Ziploc, letting the ground meat fall into a bowl that sits in ice.
Ready to grind!
Once all the meat has passed through the grinder, I place the meat in the bowl of the mixer and, using the mixing paddle, mix the meat slowly for about 1 minute. I then add the 1 cup of cold Pinot Noir and mix for another minute, on medium.
If the sausage meat is sticky, I know I’ve reached the stage where it can go into casings–after I fry up and taste a small sample piece to make sure all of the seasonings are just right. If you do plan to use casings, keep the sausage meat in the fridge until you’ve set your casings equipment up.
As I said, I totally skip the casings part of the equation. So once the sausage meat has chilled for a bit, I roll them into small meatballs, placing the meatballs on trays lined with non-stick aluminum foil for easy removal later. These trays of meatballs go into the freezer, and once the meatballs freeze up, I can place them in freezer bags and properly store them.
I’ve also made sausage patties using a mold I have for beef sliders. Any shape will work.

Once you’ve made your own sausage, you will never settle for store-bought again. Knowing every ingredient that goes in…knowing the quality of the meat you’ve used…binding (and flavoring) with a quality red wine instead of simple water…it makes an incredible difference!

MAKING REALLY AMAZING PIZZA AT HOME

Posted: September 30, 2012 in cheese, fleur de sel, Food, Italian, montanara, pizza, Recipes, san marzano, tomatoes
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There are few foods that people take as personally as pizza. Tell someone that your pizza place is better than their pizza place, and chances are you’ll start a fight. Well, my pizza place is better than your pizza place, because I make it at home. Besides, I can run faster than you.

I’m not going to say that much of the pizza that I’ve tried here in Rhode Island is mediocre, but I will say that I was born in Brooklyn and grew up working in many New York pizza places in my youth. So yes, I do have a very strong opinion on what I think makes a good or bad pizza.

My homemade pizza is all about the basics. The better quality my original ingredients are, the better my pizza will be:

 

The dough…

The key ingredient is 00 flour, and it can be found in specialty stores,  or online. My favorite new source is Central Milling in Logan, Utah. They make a 00 flour that is top notch. I buy it through the Forno Bravo pizza oven website: http://www.fornobravo.com/store/Tipo-00-Pizza-Flour/ It makes a crustier and more flavorful dough. Ratios for this recipe depend on the humidity in my kitchen on any given day, but my basic pizza dough recipe is as follows:

4–5 cups 00 flour

1 cup tepid water

1 Tablespoon salt

1 packet Italian pizza yeast

a squirt of extra virgin olive oil

I mix all the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer, then slowly add the water as it mixes. After the ingredients are well mixed, and the dough pulls from the side of the bowl, I remove it to a floured board, where I knead the dough by hand for another 5 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic, shaping it into a ball. I rub a little olive oil over the ball of dough, place it in a bowl covered with plastic wrap, and let it rise for 2 hours, punching it down after that, and letting it rise another 2 hours again.

The sauce…

I’ve written a previous blog about real and fake cans of San Marzano tomatoes. I feel that San Marzanos make the best sauce, but not all cans of San Marzanos are created equal. The only way you can be guaranteed you have a real can of these beauties, grown in volcanic Italian soil in the shadow of Mt Vesuvius, is by the D.O.P. designation on the can. (D.O.P. stands for “Denominazione d’Origine Protetta,” and signifies that it’s the real deal.) Anything else that says San Marzano may not be.

San Marzanos are so amazing, that all I do is puree them in a food processor, pour the sauce into a pan, and let it reduce until it has thickened. No spices or additions of any kind.

The cheese…

I don’t need to go super-fancy with mozzarella di bufala (cheese made from the milk of the water buffalo) …but I don’t use the mass-produced supermarket stuff, either. Whole Foods has fresh mozarella from Maplebrook Farms in Vermont, and it is excellent.

The toppings…

A matter of choice. I wrote a while ago about how I make my own guanciale, a cured meat that comes from pork cheeks. Chopped and fried, that is one of my daughter’s favorite pizza toppings.

But my signature pizza that wows my dinner guests is my marinated beef tenderloin and fried chive blossom pizza. I marinate and grill a piece of beef tenderloin, slicing it thin. And in the springtime, when my chive plants are budding like crazy, I snip the blossoms before they open and place them in Ziploc freezer bags to use all year long. When it’s time, I grab a handful of the blossoms and fry them in a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and sprinkle them over the top of the beef tenderloin pizza. A touch of Fleur de Sel on top seals the deal.

My signature marinated beef tenderloin and chive blossom pizza.

The oven…

Many professional pizza ovens reach a temperature of 1000 degrees. My home oven only reaches 500, but it does the trick. I do use a pizza stone, and place it on the center rack of the oven, and let it heat up thoroughly before sliding a pizza onto it for cooking.

Recently, I’ve also started cooking pizzas on my barbecue grill (using a special stone for the grill) to add a smoky component. The grill gets hotter than my home oven, which is great, but it’s obviously a more work to set-up and clean.

 

My favorite pizza?

There are only a few pizzerias that I know of—all in NYC–that make pizza montanara, and for my money, it’s the best I’ve ever had. It’s a small, rustic pizza margherita using mozzarella di bufala and simple tomato sauce, garnished with a basil leaf. What makes it magical is the fact that after they stretch the dough–but before they put the toppings on it–they fry the dough in deep fryer with olive oil for just a minute. It puffs up like a pillow. Then they put the toppings on and quickly bake it in a very hot oven. The end result is a non-greasy, absolutely heavenly pizza cloud…the most delicious I’ve ever had.

I’ve actually had some great success recreating this pizza at home, frying the dough in a very large skillet of olive oil. The challenge is removing this giant piece of dough out of the skillet and into a pizza pan without dripping olive oil all over my stove and setting my house on fire! So far, so good!

FRESH TOMATO AND CORN RECIPES BEFORE THE SEASON FINALLY ENDS

Posted: September 27, 2012 in corn, Food, Recipes, tomatoes
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SUMMER ISN’T OVER YET!

OK…at least I refuse to think so.

It’s still not too late to enjoy the fresh fruits and veggies that our local farmers have to offer. Soon, we’ll be forced to go back to the supermarket to buy our produce. But until then, we can enjoy the bright, fresh flavors that only our local farmers can provide.

Oven roasted plum tomatoes

These are not sun dried tomatoes. These are seasoned and slow roasted, so that their sweet flavors concentrate, but the moist, chewy texture remains.

Ingredients:

12 to 18 halved, seeded plum tomatoes

Extra virgin olive oil

Sugar

Freshly ground pepper

Fleur de Sel, or other finishing salt

Pre-heat oven to 250.

Line a baking sheet with foil and rub it with olive oil.

Arrange halved and seeded tomatoes on the baking sheet in a single layer, cut side up. Drizzle evenly with ½ cup olive oil, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar, and season with pepper to taste.

Baked the tomatoes until they are still juicy but slightly wrinkled, about 3 hours. Transfer to a platter and let cool slightly.

Just before serving, sprinkle tomatoes with Fleur de Sel, and garnish, if you like, with mint, parsley or basil.

 

BABY BELL PEPPERS WITH FRESH CORN STUFFING

Bags of these baby bell peppers are appearing everywhere on supermarket shelves this season. Recently, I had about 100 people over for a party, and I came up with this tasty bite to serve as an appetizer.

Ingredients:

Baby bell peppers

1 dozen ears fresh corn, boiled for just a couple of minutes, then removed from the cob…or organic frozen corn

1 Vidalia onion, peeled, quartered, grilled, chopped

Juice of 1 large lime

¾ cup mayonnaise

20 shots of Frank’s Red Hot or Tabasco

1 lb Queso Fresco, crumbled

Salt

Fresh cilantro or parsley, finely chopped

Cook the corn for just a couple of minutes to keep it crisp. If using corn on the cob, cut corn from ears and place in a bowl.

Peel and quarter the Vidalia onion, and throw it on a hot grill with a little olive oil to get some nice grill marks on it, leaving the onion still crispy, not soft. Remove, let cool, then place in a food processor and pulse until the onion is chopped into small bits, just smaller than the corn kernels. Add onions to corn.

In a separate small bowl, combine mayonnaise and Frank’s Red Hot. Pour in crumbled Queso Fresco and mix well. Pour into corn and onion bowl and mix well.

Add lime juice to the bowl and mix well again. Taste mixture and season with salt.

Cut the baby bell peppers in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds and membrane. Stuff the peppers with the corn mixture and garnish with cilantro or parsley.

If preparing ahead of time, refrigerate until ready to eat, but allow some time for them to warm up a little bit. You don’t want to serve them ice cold.

LAMB: AN EXCELLENT ALTERNATIVE ON THE GRILL

Posted: September 20, 2012 in barbecue, Food, grilling, lamb, marinade, Recipes
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So many people are afraid to try lamb, and I don’t understand why. On the grill, lamb is absolutely delicious.

I think that most people are turned off by lamb because somewhere in their past, they had a horribly cooked piece of it, and that event ruined it for the rest of their lives.

I’m here to tell you that you need to “man up” and try lamb again! And the two recipes below will make it one of your go-to grill ingredients…

I love the baby lamb chops that look like miniature porterhouse steaks. You can find them in any supermarket. If you think lamb has a strong taste, a good marinade will get rid of any of those flavors you don’t want. Here’s an easy recipe that I served at a party in my home for 40 people, many of whom claimed they didn’t like lamb or never had it before. By the end of dinner, the chops were gone!

 

½ cup olive oil

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped

1 Tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and pepper

 

Place lamb meat in a plastic bag or glass container with a lid. Combine all ingredients for marinade and pour over lamb. Toss lamb to coat. Seal container and place in refrigerator for at least an hour. Pre-heat your barbecue grill. Grill lamb until done. That means cooked no more than medium. Don’t cook it to death!

 

 

Here’s another recipe that doesn’t require marinating ahead of time:

 

2/3 cup Dijon mustard

3 Tablespoons orange zest

3 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

4 teaspoons packed light brown sugar

salt and pepper, to taste

 

Mix orange zest and thyme into a paste. Add mustard and brown sugar. Mix together. Pre-heat grill. Brush the mixture onto each side of the lamb chops and place on a hot grill for about 2 minutes per side. Turn the chops and brush again. Continue until done. Season with salt and pepper.

Try either of these recipes, and I guarantee you’ll be cooking lamb more often!

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