lamb shanks

This was very simple but really quite great. The lamb shank is actually a Jamie Oliver method of stuffing lamb shanks with butter and herbs and then baking them in foil with leeks, carrots, white wine and olive oil. I liked the simplicity of the method and the flavor was really incredible. It took just under 2½ hours. I served them with potatoes and Julia Child haricots verts, where they are blanched, pan-dried, then tossed in butter and parsley. It really is the best way - they stay crisp and bright.

pappardelle with rabbit

This is a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie (London: Michael Joseph, 2006); I tend to be very skeptical of all celebrity chefs, but I've received two of his books as gifts and everything he does is great. Leeks baked with bacon? Amazing. Pasta with stewed rabbit? Also amazing.

I used ½ AP flour, ½ semolina, rolled the dough out slightly thicker than I usually do and cut it by hand for pappardelle.


A full rabbit, jointed is marinated overnight in olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, lemon zest, thyme, and rosemary. It gets seared and is them simmered in white wine, in the over, with more garlic, rosemary and thyme. Shredded, with the cooking liquid strained, it is finished with green olives (I forget the name of the ones I bought, but they were great), marjoram, thyme and parmesan. As with many delicious things, I forgot to take a picture before digging in. Served with Julia Child's recipe for haricots verts: boiled, then dry-sautéed until the moisture is gone and topped with butter and parsley. My new favorite way to eat haricots verts.

« housewarming »

This weekend my roommate and I had a seven-month belated "housewarming" and quite a spread of food. Highlights included a vegan cucumber dip with a base of cashews ground with cucumber water from the shredded cucumber that were added at the end, a walnut-cremini pâté (also vegan), rillettes, gougères (Tartine's recipe), baked leeks wrapped in bacon (those disappeared in minutes) and a three-mushroom puff-pastry tart (the puff pastry came out wonderfully, much better than last time I made it. Rolling it thicker and baking hot helped).

haricots verts & almonds / leeks & bacon

5-minute dinner

A very satisfying five-minute dinner. First step, had leftover brown rice. Second, sautéed green beans (the skinny haricots verts), with cashews and black sesame seeds (for three minutes at most, on high). Third, added tamari and mirin. Done. Delicious.

a very massachusetts meal

Tonight was a particularly Massachusetts meal. I bought wild-caught Massachusetts bluefish and cooked it following
D.L.'s recent creation: simply dipped in brown rice flour (and he was right, it does make all the difference not using wheat flour) and served on a bed of zucchini that he told me about. (We discussed my -- until recent -- aversion to zucchini, mostly in that it's almost always overcooked and squishy). It's julienned zucchini tossed with hot olive oil and almonds: not cooked; just warmed. The zucchini was from Hadley, as well as the haricots verts that I blanched and tossed in olive oil, and then there were these incredible fingerling potatoes that I believe to have come from Deerfield. They're the Russian -- not French -- fingerlings, if I remember correctly, from Linda at the farmer's market. So creamy that it was incredible.

The the bluefish was done perfectly, rich and moist, and the vegetables complemented the fish very well, not overpowering, just there and fresh. The zucchini was just pliable enough to be twirled on a spoon like spaghetti.