Wednesday, March 05, 2003

With his finger holding the string around the pork-stuffed lamb, my husband said, “Maybe you should see a therapist about this cooking stuff. “Maybe they have therapists just for chefs.  And you could get a discount, since you aren’t a professional.” This wasn’t helping. See, the thing is, folks, you might not have been able to detect this, but I have some anger management issues.  And nothing (well, almost nothing – we will put aside the New York City subway system for the moment) brings those issues boiling to the surface like attempting to tie roasts.  Particularly expensive lamb roasts that came from the communist butcher all neatly tied, but which neat strings I had to cut to get inside to spread on the Farce de Porc, and which upon retying cannot be made to look like anything but pathetic mutilated lamb flesh, leaking porky ooze.  Especially since I ran out of twine before I was quite done with the job, so that I was trying to finish up with some kind of nasty slippery nylon stuff I probably really ought not be cooking with, and which I couldn’t cook with anyway, because I couldn’t make it hold a knot, because despite my friend James’ best efforts, I’ve never really learned to tie a real knot. In a situation like this there is a high potentiality for your common motherfucker to bitch out.  Which bitching out, in my particular case, manifests itself as head-beating against the refrigerator door and moaning like a mentally disabled, wounded cat in heat. “You’d be great in the military,” my husband says, as I helplessly poke at the seeping (and aptly named, in the French) pork farce, “You could just stuff your comrades innards right back in.” It is possible that I should go to therapy.  But sweet Jesus, don’t let my husband become a therapist. But I exaggerate.  Aside from the lamb-tying, and the usual ten o’clock eating, Gigot de Pre-Sale avec Farce de Porc is not a particularly trying dish.  The stuffing itself is simple, though it is one of those things where you find yourself halfway through the various choppings and grindings and seasonings wondering, Christ, why is this taking so long?  Start with cooking ¾ cup of minced onions slowly with butter until soft.  (Mincing onions alone, always takes longer than you’d think.)  Then soak a cup of fresh breadcrumbs in some lukewarm beef broth.  As of this evening I’ve started using this “Better than Boullion” stuff, thick Vegemite-looking black stuff that comes in a little jar that you dilute with water.  Don’t know yet if it’s any good, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to carry home on the subway than four cans of Swanson’s.  Drain the crumbs and add them to the onions in a mixing bowl.  Add a half pound of ground pork, some chopped pork fat – Eric, after heroically combing the streets of Astoria, could not find fresh pork fat, but he got strips of pork belly, and I cut cubes of fat off that – sage, minced parsley, allspice, salt, pepper and an egg, and mix it all together.  Spread it over the opened-up boneless leg of lamb, and freak out for a few minutes while tying it back up, sort of.  Stick it in a 450° oven, in a pan with a bit of olive oil, for fifteen minutes, turning it from time to time so it browns evenly.  Turn the heat down to 350° and cook until you think it’s done, a little more than an hour if you want it nice and pink.  (About 145° with a meat thermometer is what JC suggests, and I more or less agree.) All this can be done (as can baking some potatoes beside the roast) while watching a compelling hour of “24.”  And I would like to take this opportunity to offer my unique bit of astute political commentary – President Palmer, you’re being played! When “24” is over – I mean, when the roast is done -- take it out and place it on a platter.  As my husbands says, what with the black bits on the edges and the oozing pork stuff, it looks like something that didn’t make it out of the blast zone, but no matter.  It should rest for twenty minutes or so, if you believe in that kind of thing.  Which in any case is about the amount of time it takes to cook down the juices in the pan with some Better than Boullion© for sauce and steam some green beans and get out plates and things. Sadly, if not unexpectedly, since much of the stuffing had oozed out, there was no pretty ring of it in the middle of the slices of meat.  But it could be found and mounded on top, and it was very good, as stuffing studded with fresh pork fat tends to be, and gave a silky, rich foil (God, I hate it when people writing about food use the word “foil.”  Just pretend I didn’t….) for the lamb.  The lamb, also, was just about perfect, pink and tender and lovely.  And then, you know, baked potatoes and green beans.  No sour cream on the green beans, sadly, because somehow both our containers of sour cream had migrated to the back of the fridge, where they had frozen.  Weird, and not a little annoying.  But the last thing I need is more cream, so we’ll let it go.     7:45:01 AM    comment []