DAY 19: Oven Crisped Lamb, Peppers, and Greens (Variation) and Turkish Almond Sauce

Whew! When your computer gets a virus, it is an excellent opportunity to procrastinate and not work on your cooking blog! Computer is still being worked on by husband, not sure when I will be able to get my photos off of it!

Oven Crisped Lamb, Peppers, and Greens (Variation from Crisped Pork)
Turkish Almond Sauce

After I didn't buy the extremely expensive lamb chops in protest the other night, I realized I had a large, expensive, organic, leg of lamb in the freezer. I bought this from our favorite ranch, THUNDERING HOOVES--(which I will spare you my normal rant, just go to their website!)

The main part of this recipe is easy. Toss your meat with the veggies, spices, and oil and then roast in the oven at 450 degrees, turning occasionally, until nice and crisped. (In truth, I turned it down a hair and cooked it longer, about 35 minutes)

The original recipe calls for Pork Tenderloin, but I have had this leg of lamb for a month now and have been trying to think of something to do with it. If you are using tenderloins, slice them into 1/2 inch thicknesses, if using lamb, cut away the fat and make do. It was hard to cube the leg into equal size pieces and there was a huge amount of fat and membrane to cut off and it made a big mess all over the counter. Pork tenderloins are much easier to work with! It was well worth it, however.

Toss your meat with a mix of hot and sweet sliced peppers, onions, a handful of mixed greens, your seasoning mix, and oil. The seasoning mix is allspice, coriander, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, and garlic. Definitely a little exotic to the Western palate here, I only wish more American cooking used spices like these.

Now at this point, they, the authors, whom I usually listen with rapt attention to everything they say, tell us to toss with 1/4 cup good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil. In fact nearly every one of their recipes, be it a saute to a roasting to a salad all say use good-tasting, high-quality, extra-virign olive oil. I go on a sharp tangent from this belief.

A) Good olive oil is expensive. Half the time you can't even taste it with how the meal has been cooked.
B) You should NEVER, EVER bring extra-virgin olive oil to a high cooking temperature. It has a very low "smoking point" that makes it taste bad AND has the added danger of releasing carcinogens. Geez.

I usually cook with canola oil that can take a higher temperature. It has the added bonus of being less expensive than the olive oil I only use the extra-virgin olive oil for flavoring things that aren't cooked, like salad dressings, pesto, or adding a drizzle after something is done cooking to add more flavor. OK, I am done with my rant, back to the recipe.

While your meat is cooking, you can assemble the Turkish Almond Sauce.

First mix a minced clove of garlic and a few tablespoons of a minced sweet onion with 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar. Set this aside for 10 minutes. I think this is to mellow out the flavors.

Then you beat in 1/4 cup good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil until the sauce is creamy. (I stuck to this part as the olive oil is not cooked!) Then you add salt, pepper, one cup plain whole-milk yogurt, (I used non-fat and it still tasted fabulous. I think these people want us all to be fat.) a cup of coarse chopped almonds and chopped cilantro. The recipe says the cilantro is optional but I think it is essential. One can never have enough cilantro.

To serve, I made another recipe of the no-cook whole wheat couscous and set some cooked lamb mixture right on top and then a large portion of the almond sauce.

This dinner was excellent. The almond yogurt sauce with the olive oil and cilantro balanced perfectly with the gamy lamb and spicy, roasted veggies. And this time the couscous was good because the meat and the veggies and the sauce mixed in with everything. I will be trying this with pork very soon. if you don't like lamb, I know the pork will be just as good.

38 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.