On occasion I may have to opportunity to cook for someone, and in this case for a person who has never had lamb before. Ive never felt the need to experiment too much with the ways that I have done rack of lamb because they just simply work so well. The hardest part about this dish was trying to balance all the flavours out. There is a bit of acidity from the preserved lemons, marinated cucumbers, and salad dressing which offsets the rich creaminess of the potato salad.  Likewise the nasturtium is peppery and kind of bitter which is why I added wildflower honey into the dressing. Overall this dish has some great summery fresh flavours, and was nice and light.

Rack of Lamb

2 - Racks of Lamb
1 - Bunch of Parsley
¾ - L of Breadcrumbs
Dijon mustard
Salt and Pepper

It is important when cooking any cut of meat to butcher it properly, meat processing plants often forgo doing the fine butchery because it cost too much money in time and waste. Chances are your rack will already be frenched, but be covered with excess fat, and silver skin. The best approach in to cut a small line into the fat about half of an inch from the beginning of where the meat is. The idea is to keep that top bit of fat near the ribs. After you strip away all that extra fat we don’t want, you will see a silvery lining covering the muscles of the meat -this too must go. There is also sometimes an little muscle near the bottom that conceals some more silver skin underneath it, I like to remove this as well. By doing with we are going to ensure a very tender piece of meat. Keep this in the fridge until we are ready to use it.

Wash your parsley and pick off all the leaves from the stem, add this to a food processor followed by the bread crumbs. It make take more or less of either the parsley or bread crumbs to get the colour you want, which is a nice herby green. Blitz this in the processor until uniform in colour and size (might take a little longer then you think, don’t worry its almost impossible to mess this up.

Take the lamb out of the fridge and get a pan very hot with a dash of olive oil and butter. Liberally season every part of the lamb. Sear until golden brown on all sides, and let cool.

When the lamb is cool brush it with the Dijon mustard (not out of the jar, cross contamination!). Put some of your herbed bread crumbs on a plate, along with a little salt and pepper for seasoning. Delicately place your Dijon covered racks on the bread crumb mix until covered with mix.

Bake uncovered at 350 for about 15-20 minutes depending on preference (I like mine rare), when done let rest for a few minutes then serve.

Herbed Potato Salad


Depending on preference you can use any waxy potato, fingerlings work very well, but in this case I just happened to have plain old white potatoes. Feel free also to use whatever herbs you feel like.

4-5 medium White Potatoes
1 cup Aioli
1 Shallot
3 Sage leaves
4-5 French sorrel leaves
Sprig of Thyme
Dijon mustard

Gently boil your potatoes until perfectly cooked, undercooked is no good, and overcooked will cause the skins to tear away. Allow these to cool for thirty or so minutes or until room temperature. Allowing them to sit in the fridge for awhile will also firm up the starch a bit. Dice these up. Chiffonade your herbs, and give your shallot a fine brunoise. Add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and as much aioli as needed until it reaches a good consistency. Season. Can be eaten right away or allowed to marinate in the fridge.

Aioli

1 Egg yolk
1 cup Olive oil
5 cloves of Roasted garlic
1 clove of Fresh garlic
1 Lemon
1 tbsp Dijon mustard

Add egg yolk, juice of one lemon, mustard and garlic to a food processor. Start blitzing. Slowly drop by drop add oil. Season. For troubleshooting refer to the Rosemary Sage Aioli post.

Marinated Cucumber

½ Cucumber
1 Shallot
White wine vinegar

Cut the cucumber into about two inch pieces cross wise and each of those pieces in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds using a spoon. Gently push the pieces flat and cut in half. Cut these pieces into strips lengthwise. They should be about 2 inches long by a quarter inch wide. Finely dice the shallot and add to cucumber. Just cover with white wine, and allow to marinate in the fridge.

Preserved Lemon

1 piece of Preserved Lemon

Refer to the recipe for this ingredient here. If you don’t have this laying around the skin of ¼ of a lemon will do. Using a sharp knife carefully scrape away all the pith. Laying the knife flat as well as the lemon slice out all the pith (white stuff). Be Careful. Cut into fine strips.

Wildflower Salad

Feel free to use dandelion leaves, arugula, whatever you are comfortable with will substitute. I didn’t really size any of this out, but it was mostly a small handful of things I had growing in the garden.

Nasturtium leaves (the young ones are best)
Nasturtium flower petals
Lemon Balm
Wood Sorrel
1 tbsp Olive oil
¼ tbsp White wine vinegar
Drizzle of Wildflower honey

Wash your greens, leaves the flower petals out. Most of this stuff is delicate, so you must be to. Just before serving combine everything together, and gently toss by hand.

Parlsey Oil

½ bunch Parsley
½ litre Grapeseed oil

Heat up a pan of boiling water with a touch of salt. Quickly blanch the parsley leaves in the boiling water, and then add to a bowl of ice or cold water to stop cooking. Squeeze the herbs together to ring out all the water, or use a salad spinner. Roughly chop the parsley and add to a blender with the oil. Grapeseed oil is a very neutral tasting oil so its very good for infused oil, however feel free to use what you have. Blitz until the mixture turns a dark green colour. Strain this through a fine mesh strainer or coffee filter.

I couldnt wait, I tried one, and they are amazing, that is all.

Arguably one of the tastiest leftover dishes ever conceived, and coincidently my dinner snack. This dish dates back centuries when times were scarce and every morsel needed to be used up. However, do don't have to necessarily use leftover risotto, any rice dish that resembles wallpaper paste the next day will do. This typically means short grain starchy varieties, and ive done it with sushi rice, and short grain wild rice. But in this case its a mushroom, sage, and spinach risotto from last night. Also, panko bread crumbs are not traditional, but they are so damn good! Feel free to substitute for traditional bread crumbs if panko are not in the pantry.  This is so easy... ready?

Ingredients

Leftover risotto (or starchy rice dish)
Flour
Egg
Breadcrumbs
Oil
Sage
Salt

Method

Roll your rice into balls of your preference (I do about 1-1.5 inches in diameter). Roll in flour, dredge in egg, roll in bread crumbs. At this point they can and do freeze well....if you want. Heat deep fryer to 350, drop in one at a time, and take out when golden brown. When done season, let cool slightly. While cooling grab some sage leaves, wash, dry, and plop in the fryer. These will only take about 10-15 seconds. Told you it was that easy.

Nature is a wonderful thing, and provides many opportunities for us to raid from it. In this case its raided from a flower bed (not quite nature, but you get my point). This is my first ever tasting of nasturtium, and I cant wait until fall to make pickled nasturtium buds -an amazing and local alternative to capers. This soup is very simple to make, and rewards you with a beautiful green colour. Both the leaves and the flowers of this plant are edible to feel free to garnish with the flowers. Nasturtium reminds me a lot of watercress, a touch more bitter, and has a wonderfully peppery taste. Feel free to use this soup as is or as a base for other amazing flavour combinations. I feel as though peas, mint, sorrel, would all be quite good additions.

• 20-30 Nasturtium leaves
• 3 Onions
• 1 Carrot
• 3 Celery stalks
• 2 Cloves garlic
• 1L Chicken stock
• ½ L 35% Cream
• Bay leaf
• White wine
• Salt and Pepper

Cut the mirepoix into a rough dice and sweat in a saucepan. When soft and translucent de glaze with some white wine and let that reduce just slightly. Add both the cream and chicken stock (feel free to use veg stock,) add the bay, salt, and pepper and bring to the boil. When the vegetables are quite soft add the mixture to a blender. Roughly chop the nasturtium leaves and add them to the blender. Only fill the blender halfway or your going to get a nasty surprise and puree.  When that bunch is done strain through a chinois and repeat until finished. If you add the leaves while the soup is cooking you will destroy the chlorophyll and lose the brilliant green colour. Bon Appetite.

Always inspired by the more cruder things in life, recognizing the inherit beauty in things made even more transcendent by the simple act of care and nourishment we have the humble pig tail. The inspiration, and downright robbery of this recipe hails from the offal king himself Fergus Henderson, and his culinary pilgrimage of St. Johns Restaurant in England. My biggest contribution of his original dish is a little shine, but at its heart remains the same. This turned out absolutely delicious, and makes a great meal or snack. Feel free to prepare the tails ahead of time, as the tails freeze beautifully -however it might be wise to allow to dethaw before frying.


Pig Tails

• 6 Pig tails (the bigger the better)
• 3 Onions
• Carrot
• Celery Stalk
• 4 Cloves of garlic
• Pint and a Half of Beer (Fergus Henderson's recipe calls for wine)
• 12 Peppercorns (cracked)
• 2 Bay leaves
• Sprig of thyme
• Flour
• 4 Eggs
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• Panko
• Oil for deep frying (your choice)

Prepare the tails by either shaving, or singing off the hair with a blow torch. My thankfully were remarkably clean and did not need much in the way of hair removal. Begin by sweating off the mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) In a dish large enough to contain all the pig tails, when translucent add finely chopped garlic, and de glaze with beer. Bring beer to gentle boil and add pig tails. Stick into a 350 degree oven for about 3 hours, and let cool till just warm. If you leave too long the braising liquid will gel together and make it more difficult to remove the tails, however if this does occur carefully heat the pan back up. Prepare a dredging station using a bowl of flour, a bowl containing the eggs and mustard whisked together, and a bowl containing the panko bread crumbs (I find the panko will add a nice contrasting texture to the very soft texture of the tails.) First dip the tails in the flour, followed by the egg/mustard mixture and finally the panko. At this point it is entirely possible to keep them in the fridge, and they will freeze rather well. To prepare for the dish, heat up a deep fryer to 350 until golden brown.

Watercress Salad

• Bunch of watercress
• 1 Shallot
• Red wine vinegar

While the tails are deep frying, heat a pan with oil and sweat out the shallot, add a handful of watercress. De glaze with vinegar. Your watercress should be just wilted and still retain a nice green colour.

Rosemary Sage Aioli

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (can be omitted but helps with emulsification)
• 1 lemon
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Sprig of rosemary
• 3-4 Sage leaves

Finely dice the herbs, and puree the garlic combine with the lemon juice, egg yolk, and mustard together. While whisking vigorously drop by drop add the oil. When the emulsification begins you can begin adding the oil in a very thin stream. If your mixture ends up splitting, you probably added the oil too fast, but dont throw it away. In a new bowl add another egg yolk and the mustard and slowly add in the split mixture the same way as before (being a little more careful.)

At first I thought it was a dreary day, damp, raining, over casted. But as I continued that thought process it occurred to me, this is the first day of morel season, and these are the perfect conditions to find them. Call it the luck of the Irish, but I have never been one to eat four leaf clovers. I came across this beautiful piece of mother nature within a half hour. No I wont tell you where I found it, because tomorrow I am sure there will be more. I think those honeycomb folds are dying to suck in some butter =)

Sorry about the picture, I messed around with this until my food went cold, and well I was hungry. So what we have here is basically a rabbit trio dish, the leg, the loin, and the rack, which leaves us with the front legs and some offal that shall be saved for another day. If ever you have illusions of boning a rack of rabbit, be warned its time consuming, tedious, and a general pain in the ass.

Braised Leg with Morels and Rabbit Cream Sauce

• Rabbit leg(s)
• Rabbit stock
• Garlic
• Bay leaf
• Thyme
• Fennel seed
• Peppercorn
• Cream

I think thats it for ingredients. This is pretty easy to accomplish. Firstly get a pan nice and hot with some oil, and proceed to brown the legs. When they are nicely brown put them in a pot, and deglaze the pan with wine, water, whatever you have around to deglaze with, and scrap all the nice little brown bits off the bottom. Dump this into the pot with the rabbit legs. To this add stock halfway up the legs, and the rest of the ingredients excluding the cream. Allow to slowly simmer with the lid on, either on top of the stove, or put into an oven at a low temperature (275-375) until the meat is tender and is pulling away from the bone. If you chose to braise in the oven, be sure to heat up your braising liquid to a boil before it goes into the oven. Once the legs are tender, take off the heat, and let cool in the liquid. Allowing the legs to cool in the braising liquid will give the muscles a chance to reabsorb lost moisture (in this case tasty tasty braising liquid). After everything has cooled remove the legs, and strain the braising liquid into another pot (this is the base for the sauce). Heat the liquid back up, and reduce. Add cream, and reduce to a sauce like consistency. Just before you want to serve it throw a nub of butter in to give the sauce a nice sheen, and velvety texture.

Garlic Olive Oil Poached Loin on Asparagus with Asparagus Foam

• Rabbit loin
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Asparagus (blanched)
• Lecithin 

Alright, the first thing everyone is going to ask is what and where do I find lecithin, so well clear this up right now. Lecithin is a soy or egg based protein thats used to emulsify water based molecules. This means that if you add the correct amount of lecithin into a water based concoction, and create bubbles within said concoction, they will stabilize instead of popping. This is one way of creating a culinary foam. Lecithin can be found in health food stores, but I found mine at Bulk Barn and paid much less for it.

First thing is first, we want to asparagus tips, and everything else goes to the foam. Take the discarded parts of the asparagus, steam them, then blanch in cold water to preserve their green color. Put these into a blender with some water and blitz up. Allow to cool. Strain. Add one tablespoon of lecithin pure cup of mixture. I am not sure about the exact proportions of this, because resources are scarce, although there are a few videos: Wasabi Foam, Beetroot and Juniper Air, and Lemon Air unfortunately all these videos are either not clear on proportions or use Ferran Adria's Texturas which may contain different concentrations. As before I successfully did this with one tablespoon pure cup. It is important that all the ingredients are cold. One the mixture is strained, you can add the lecithin and incorporate air using an immersion blender. After the bubbles have formed you must let it sit for a few minutes to separate the liquid and foam. Mine stayed stabilized for about an hour at room temperature before there was a noticeably different density.  Unfortunately, I was so pissed off trying to get a picture of the dish, I forgot to get a good zoom of the foam >=/

Thinly slice some garlic, and put this in a pot filled with enough olive oil to immerse the loins. This depends on your pot. Heat the oil to about 170 F give or take a few degrees, and drop the loins in until they reach a safe eating temperature. Take a few tablespoons of the garlic oil, and put into a pan with a knob of butter and quickly saute the asparagus tips until heated through. Serve the Loin on top of the spears, and gently spoon the foam on the loin.

Tempura Battered Rack of Rabbit with Carrot Timbale and Peas

This was inspired by Heston Blumenthals In Search of Perfection where Heston tries to find the perfect fish batter. Well I didnt neccesarly use a CO2 can, and beer, and go absolutely nuts with the batter. However, if you watch the episode it will give you a great tempura batter, and show you proper technique! If however your lazy you can either make your own tempura batter using rice flour, pastry flour, water, and club soda or beer. But, if your lazy you probably shouldn't be attempting this.


Timbale

• 2 carrots
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp Sugar
• Butter
• Water
• Cream

Find nice large carrots, cut one in half lengthwise, and using a peeler or mandoline slice four thin slices lengthwise. Quickly blanch these, and cool. Take four aluminum cups or ramekins (actually I dont know what they are called but they seem to be in every professional kitchen,) and butter the insides. wrap the carrot strips around the inside.

Put the sugar butter, and water in a pan and warm up. Place the remainder of the carrot which is nicely diced up, and cook until soft. The less water you put in, the more flavorful glaze you will end up with. Blitz all this with your trusty blender and add cream and smooth, but not liquefied. Add your eggs and mix. Carefully spoon the mixture into each container (inside the carrot slice). Take a pan, or vessel large enough to accommodate the ramekins fill with water to a height where the ramekins will be half immersed (a bain marie for those not in the know,) and boil. When boiled add the ramekins and put into a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until set. It will end up a custard like consistency.

Heat your deep fryer to 350ish, or if you dont have one as I do not. Take a big pot or deep pan and add Canola, or Peanut oil (high smoke point). The Japanese say that when the batter hits the bottom and raises right away its hot enough. Once again check the Blumenthal show for proper technique. Basically, you batter the rack, dip it in, and flip extra batter on the exposed side of the already battered rack to create layers, and textures. Once its a light golden brown, it should be done. The thing I like about this method is it keeps the rack moist, and does not overcook like searing, or roasting would. The peas can quickly be heated up with butter and served along side.

I think thats it, but I will edit, if its not.

Alright, I have been waiting to make this one for years, and either lamb has been out of season or I couldnt figure out how I wanted to balance it out. I think ive very much pulled off what I set out for.

The glaze was probably my biggest concern. Once the sambucca reduced down, would it be too sweet to function as part of the dish. To combat this I reduced about 1/4 cup of sugar down with 3/4 of a cup of black sambucca with a few cloves of garlic, and a good splash of beef stock. Reduce this down until it starts bubbling on itself, which should be a good indication that once it cools down, it should have a nice sticky consistency that the peppercorns will adhere to. This was then cooled and brushed onto the lamb, then coated in cracked black peppercorns, seared in a hot cast iron to a nice rare.

The fennel is easy enough to accomplish, quarter and clean the fennel while bringing some stock, touch of wine, thyme, and bay to a boil. Introduce the fennel, and then cook in a 450 degree oven until soft (about 30 minutes). It is important not to overcook the fennel, it should be fork tender yet still retain shape. There are almost no better joys in life then braised fennel.

The rice was actually a random find at the grocery store, yet I dare say ive never had a better rice... brand to come soon.

The mache, morel, and purple sugar snaps was purely a spur of the moment conception at the grocery store. Ive never had mache before, mostly because I have never seen it around these parts. The morels were dried morels (fresh would be better) and they were re hydrated in chardonnay, and then towel dried. The excess moisture by not drying will cause them to cook longer, and end up steaming more then sautéing. This was all cooked very simply, a quick saute together, some wine to deglaze, and then finished off with the wilted mache rosettes.

I made a pan sauce with the trimmings of lamb, some shallots, wine and stock, and also served a bit of the sambucca glaze. All in all I am very impressed with how this turned out, although the peppercorns may require a slight balance with bread crumbs or better application as I could see how it may be a touch too much for most tastes.