Mint and Lamb, well no duh. A little different than mint jelly though as my wife really dislikes the texture of jelly. I rubbed the lamb with chopped shallots, garlic, salt, and marinated at room temperature with a little sherry vinegar for an hour. For the mint, I rehydrated a bag of mint in 2 cups of boiling water, and strained. After marinating, I quickly sauteed both sides of the lamb chops. Then I balanced each chop on the bone, added the mint essence, covered the casserole pan, and placed it into a 400F oven for 15 minutes. I plated the lamb with a little of the mint jus. I'll have to play around more with lamb and mint, but I think here that the essence was intense enough that it would have been overpowering if I braised the lamb directly in it, rather than letting it mostly steam in it.
For the yellow carrot puree, I steamed the carrots until just fork tender. I then blended these with cream, a few pinches of dried ginger, a few pinches of sweet smoked paprika, and some sea salt.
The rapini was steamed for about 8 minutes. I garnished with garlic chips, which were quickly fried in a 1/4" of hot olive oil for about 45 seconds.
The rapini and garlic was very bitter, intentionally so. This was offset by the sweetness of the puree, which some might find too sweet on its own. The lamb was good, not spectacular, but particular interesting on this plate as the protein was the most delicately flavored feature. The mint was subtle, then the rapini was exhilarating and domineerin, and finally the puree brought everything to equilibrium and a happy ending.
|