This has been a very busy week, and when compounded with a very long commute, I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to try more of the Midde Eastern Food recipes from Saveur's slideshow. Tonight I made up for lost time with a vengeance. On deck tonight - Lamb, Artichokes, and Eggplant.
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| Dinner on the patio |
My menu was Lamb Loin Chops with Ras el Hanout and Charmoula; Fried Artichoke Hearts with Taratur Sauce, and my favorite - Smoked Baby Eggplant with Parsley-Mint-Chili Sauce and hard boiled egg garnish.
Preparing three dishes and three sauces took just under an hour but the time was worth it. First, I pulled out my pressure cooker and cooked a half dozen hard boiled eggs in a cup of water - this took about 5 minutes - 2 minutes to come up to pressure and 3 minutes to cook. While they cooked I put 4 baby eggplant on my smoker at 375 degrees, then trimmed the artichokes by cutting off the top 2 inches, and then I sliced them in half so they would cook a little faster. When the eggs were done, I removed them and let them cool off and I added the artichokes to the pressure cooker along with another 1/2 cup of water. After coming up to pressure, I cooked them for 8 minutes, and I made the sauce while they cooked. The artichoke recipe (Fried Artichoke Hearts with Taratur Sauce) can be found here:
After making the Taratur sauce, I prepared the Ras el Hanout spice mix. According to Wikipedia,
"Ras el Hanout is a spice mix from North Africa. The name is Arabic for "head of the shop" (similar to the English expression "top-shelf") and implies a mixture of the best spices the seller has to offer."
For my Ras el Hanout mix, I used a recipe from Serious Eats that can be found here:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/05/ras-el-hanout-north-african-spice-mix-recipe.html
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| Smoked Eggplant and Fried Artichoke Hearts |
I didn't have lavendar or dried rose petals as called for in the recipe, so I omitted them, and I was also missing the cubeb pepper so I used Aleppo pepper instead. I (sadly) had the other 13 ingredients on hand. My husband hates my spice cabinet because it's as large as some women's shoe closets. The recipe made about 2/3 of a cup of spice mix and I used about 4 tablespoons of that to season two lamb loin chops; I set them aside to come up to room temperature while I started the Chili herb sauce for the eggplant. OMG! That sauce was unexpectedly good! Mint, parsley, honey, lemon and chili -- this will work on a lot of things, but was especially perfect for the eggplant. The eggplant and artichokes alone would have been plenty for a great Vegan dinner (sans the eggs). Saveur's recipe for Charred Eggplant with Chili Sauce is locaed here:
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Charred-Eggplant-with-Chile-Sauce-Tahini
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| Searrng the Lamb Loin Chops |
As the eggplant fimished smoking, I added the lamb to the smoker for a few minutes while I made the Moroccan Charmoula herb sauce (http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/moroccan-charmoula). Then I began heating my cast iron Le Creuset skillet, cleaned up my prep space, and unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. All clean, Yay! Lastly, I pulled the eggplant and lamb from the smoker and finished the lamb with a good sear in the skillet. While it was finishing, I poured a glass of French Vouvray and sat down to this:
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| The Final Product |
Yum Yum Yum! These recipes are definitely keepers!
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