Well, here are some pictures of the "Alliance of the Lambs" dinner. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of anything
except the lamb.
Not the massive table, none of the veggies, nothing of the people crowded into my house drinking too much. Oh, well.
@bakervinyard , I let a few guests bring dessert. There were some pies, and an extremely rich strawberry shortbread cake that I had a slice of. (I am not much of a dessert person.)
I mentioned a lot of this already upthread, but let me recap the menu. I made two legs of lamb. One was a whole leg (both shin and femur bones), about 8.5 lbs, purchased at a
halal grocer, and prepared with North African spices (harissa, caraway, coriander, cumin, etc.). The other was a semi-bonless leg (only had the femur bone), about 6.5 lbs, purchased at a normal grocery store, and prepared with European mediterranean seasonings (garlic, lemon zest, rosemary, thyme, etc.) I also made a chutney for the lamb from ho-made preserved lemons, shallots macerated in lemon juice, olive oil, and mint.
I roasted the legs moderately low-and-slow, viz., 250F for ~2 hours, until 130F internal temp. Then I took them out and let them rest for 45 minutes, while I did other things. In the meantime, crank the oven to 500F, and put the lambs back in for 20 minutes before serving. (“Reverse sear.”) Both lambs were delicious, and were mostly deep pink, just the way I like it. Of course, due to natural variations, there were parts that were light pink and even more well done for those miscreants that like it that way.
One of the side dishes was a pearl cous-cous dish from the cookbook Plenty. DW did most of the prep work on this the day before. It is called “green cous-cous” because it has TONS of herbs in it: dill, tarragon, mint, parsley, cilantro, scallions, arugula, etc., and it topped off with crumbled feta cheese. Finally, I made braised lacinato kale, with onions, garlic, ho-made chicken stock, and seasoned with coriander, ground fennel, cayenne pepper, and a bit of lemon juice. I have a huge chef pan, and I still had to do it in 3 batches! Another guest insisted on bringing a middle eastern dish of meatballs, baked eggplant, and saffron rice. This was really outstanding, perhaps better than the other dishes. I also made roasted garlic, and served this and commercial hummus on bread. And lots of wine. LOTS of wine.
Two of the guests had just gotten married, so we feted them with 3 bottles of some cheapish Piper Sonoma Brut champagne I picked up; I felt this punched WAY above its weight. Would definitely purchase again for less than $11. I served a Cline Viognier to a guest who won’t drink red wine, and some of that may have made its way into my stomach, too! Another guest brought a forgettable Shiraz, but the most notable wines were from a different guest, who brought a few quite nice bottles. First, a little vinfanticide with a Sebastiani 2014 Cab Sauv from Sonoma. He also brought a couple bottles of H & G Limited Production Red Blend from Napa (2012). This guest was from Europe, and so picked these as a pig-in-a-poke, but they were, to my tongue, very nice, bold, rich wines that stood up to and enhanced the lamb. He was totally unfamiliar with Washington wines, so I opened a H3 Cab for him; we probably didn’t
need any more wine at this point
, but still we persisted by tasting my CC Showcase Amarone. He was kind to say that he really liked it, but I think our palates had been “softened up” by all of the previous bombardment.
First pix are raw, the last pic is after roasting.
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