lamb shanks with harissa

This is a fairly close following of this food-porn-adelic recipe on youtube. (Watch the video, it's amazing). The recipe calls for two shanks, I used four, but the stew would have been enough for six-to-eight people, so this could work for up to eight shanks. (Leftover, the stew is amazing with an egg poached in it — today's lunch. It's also great on its own, and works as a vegetarian meal).

I used white onion instead of red, didn't have orange flower water (but added some dried curaçao orange peel) and I finished the stew with ras el hanout, which makes everything more delicious.


Vegetables: whole.

And chopped. They get roasted for 45 minutes at 375ºF with olive oil, salt, and pepper.


That gets added to tomatoes, chickpeas (which I pre-soaked and then cooked in chicken stock). I added stock to the roasting pan to get all the fond.


Meanwhile, lamb shanks coated in harissa, my current favorite condiment (I might go as far as my new favorite food).


Plate with couscous. So incredibly good.

pickling

Made two types of pickles recently, a brined burdock-and-carrot pickle and a tsukemono-style eggplant.

The burdock (gobō) and carrot pickle was a basic brined vegetable pickle with about two teaspoons of salt in a cup of water. (I usually refer to Wild Fermentation for basic brining techniques). I had about a quart of thinly sliced burdock and carrot with some shredded ginger and Korean chili pepper flakes. After 5 days it was tart but still very crunchy. The earthiness of the burdock permeates the carrots and the ginger brightens everything up.

Meanwhile, the eggplants were pressed in my tsukemono ki. I tossed a very long Chinese eggplants that was cut into one-inch lengths with a teaspoon-and-a-half of salt and then tossed them with dulse flakes, a type of seaweed that is relatively sweet. I pressed the eggplants for a good day, tossing them a few times throughout. They lose some moisture, obviously, and remain a little spongy but lose the bitterness of raw eggplants. I ate most of them snacking after dinner. Perfect for warm evenings and pilsener.

kimchi!

In my last post I started making kimchi.

Here it is:

Eating a decent amount feels quite good. It's tart, quite spicy and just wonderful. The eggplant in the kimchi keeps its texture and form, as if raw, but it looses all color, taking on the pink of the pepper and the flavor of the brine. Straight-up delicious.

And here is David, a few days ago, trying it as a condiment for sautéed cucumber, zucchini and Japanese eggplant with rice:

octoberish

It's been a busy few weeks with a handful of highlights foodwise. I'm making mead: it just went into a carboy today. My sauerkraut came out wonderfully -- it's really quite good. I also made sauerrüben -- fermented turnips, usually, but I used rutabaga since it's a cross between cabbage and turnips. To the right is sorrel soup: sorrel, potatoes, leeks and a duck stock from that roasted duck last month. It was real good.

Then LD wanted fried eggplant. Fried eggplant reminds me of soggy eggplant and other parmaseans -- all of which trigger my gag reflex. So I salted and drained the slices and tossed them in this batter (a departure from the fish batter I made with rice flour): two egg whites beaten until stiff into which two yolks, salt and half a cup of brown rice flour are folded. I battered the slices and fried them in grapeseed and sesame oil. They were really wonderful.

I also discovered this incredible Italian rabe at the farmer's market: I have no photo of it, but to the right is a tortilla of rabe and potatoes.

And this is beautiful purple cauliflower with lentils (it really does taste better than the white stuff, it's got more depth and nuttiness. It's just roasted on a bed of lentils cooked with celeriac and carrots and leeks) :