Monday, March 31, 2003

So I was two hours late from a day traipsing about the ancestral stomping grounds in Brazoria County – it was five thirty, baby was precariously balance between sleep and hysteria, and I had to get the damned lamb in the oven. The lamb had been marinating for most of two days in a Marinade Cuite, or red wine marinade, in a disposable roasting pan on the kitchen counter.  Really, two days was not enough time – Julia recommends four to five, six to eight if you keep the meat in the fridge.  But come on.  So two days it was.  I let it drain on a pan while I heated the oven to 450 and melted some butter and olive oil (olive oil because I had no lard) on the stovetop.  Ethan, Eric’s industrious brother who is also a father and has a dog and a house, albeit buried so deep in a subdivision that one needs written directions, a compass and an internal homing device to find it, kindly offered to trim the celery root.  Kind and pretty brave as well – the celery root was sort of scary.  It looked like a knotty pineapple.  Anyway, he peeled it and sliced it into half-inch slices while I basted the lamb with butter and oil and stuck it in the oven.  I was to turn it every five minutes or so for fifteen minutes to make sure it browned evenly.  While that was doing, Eric boiled the celeriac slices in salted water for five minutes while I sliced up some bacon into something resembling lardons.  I hadn’t bought chunk bacon at the Central Market because the only stuff they had was like ten dollars a pound and honey, I got lots other stuff to spend my money on.  Like rent, for instance.  So I was going to have to trust in Oscar Meyer.  Simmered it in water for ten minutes and set it aside.  Minced some onions, and then it was time to turn the lamb. The lamb was producing a certain amount of smoke, but I wasn’t worried, because Eric and Ethan have that greatest of luxuries, that appliance unknown in the world of New York City rental apartments (at least my kind of New York City Rental apartments) the ventilation hood.  Ah, bliss! Well, folks, ventilating hoods are not all they’re cracked up to be, either that or anyone expecting a visit from the Julie/Julia Project needs to think ahead by a) installing professional-grade ventilation equipment or b) slipping the batteries out of the smoke detectors.  Because about five seconds after I opened the oven door to turn the lamb for the first time, the house went totally haywire.  The alarms went off – they have the kind which actually has a little woman inside saying “Fire, Fire,” very calmly like the female recorded voice in sci-fi movies that’s always counting down the seconds until the space station self-destructs.  Baby Caroline, who’d finally been drifting to sleep, promptly awoke, though with far less ado than you would have though.  Ethan was waving a broom over his head at the smoke detector as if worshipping it.  I was still turning the lamb. It’s all very embarrassing.  Eric and I have this little force field of inconvenience that travels with us, disrupting pretty much everyone we come in contact with.  Sorry about that,guys. Anyway, after that I was a little spooked about opening the oven, so I didn’t, so I’m sure the lamb did not brown as it should, but oh well.  I just turned the oven down to 350, and just left it in there.  The onions I sautéed with the simmered bacon in butter before adding the celeriac slices and beef broth plus white vermouth to cover.  I brought it to a simmer then covered it and stuck it in the oven beside the lamb.  For dessert, I was making Crème Renversee au Caramel, or Caramel Custard, unmolded.  To start, I had to make an Un Moule Carmelise, or caramel-lined mold, which I did by melting half a cup of sugar with two tablespoons of water and heating until it caramelized. So it all turned out okay, but the weirdest thing happened while I was doing this.  I melted the sugar into the water, it was bubbling away, so far so good.  But then, when it had not yet gotten brown, the sugar started solidifying again!  I’ve never had this happen before, it was so weird – the sugar crystallized again, and was totally dry!  But so I kept on cooking it, and it melted again, brown this time.  Chemistry is fun!  So that worked.  I poured it into a pyrex dish I’d set into a bowl of water and then turned the dish about until the bottom was covered.  I set it aside, upside down so it could drain.  The whole surface of the hardening caramel cracked, making scary noise like deep sea ice or something, but it all stayed in the mold, so I decided not to worry about it. Around this time my folks showed up, having been coached through the subdivision turns by Ethan.  My father was sure he was being led into a blind alley to be slaughtered.  But they got here, and much was made over the baby and vodka.  Eric was peeling and boiling potatoes.  I was smoking the occasional menthol on the porch and starting to check on the lamb.  I realized I’d fucked up by not preparing a lamb sauce to which I could add the left over lamb marinade for sauce.  So I improvised.  (I know, I know, not my strong point.  But what’s a girl to do?)  I made a little roux out of some butter and flour, then added some Just As Good As Bouillion© and some of the marinade.  The resulting sauce was, well, mauve.  It didn’t taste too too bad, though, so we made do. So the lamb comes out, the celeriac comes out.  Eric mushes together the Celeri-Rave Braise (Braised Celeriac) with the potatoes, and enough butter and half-and-half to take care of the rather bizarre celeriac taste.  I throw together the Crème Renversee au Caramel – beat half a cup of sugar with three eggs and three egg yolks until foamy.  Beat in some simmering milk.  Stir in vanilla extract (would have used vanilla bean, as suggested, if they hadn’t cost eight dollars at the Central Market.)  Strain the stuff through a sieve into the pyrex dish on top of the caramel.  Stick it in the oven for forty minutes while we eat. My mother got right to the point and said, “the mashed potatoes would be real good if it weren’t for the celeriac.”  Actually, I don’t think that’s fair.  It is a little odd, it’s true.  Ethan even said, “you know, I bet you could get this taste with celery seed or leaves,” at which comment Elizabeth blanched, imagining Bizarro Mashed Potatoes To Come.  But it had a sort of bright flavor that was interesting, and I thought it went nicely with the lamb.  The lamb was good, in that it was done pretty much to the perfect turn, and it was very tender, but I don’t know how much the marinade did.  Four days would maybe have been better. If anyone tries to serve you Crème Renversee au Caramel, do not let them pull the wool over your eyes, my friends.  This is flan.  Very good flan, however, and easy as a son of a bitch to make.  At forty minutes I took it out of the oven, set it in a dish of cold water for a minute to set, then turned it onto a plate.  So, yeah, it didn’t turn all that good, and it wasn’t all that pretty, but it was clearly flan.  Delicate custard, caramel top.  Warm and yummery and great.  The best dessert I’ve done so far, which might have a good deal to do with it being the easiest. Time prohibits me from going much into the remainder of our Houston trip.  We ate at Goode Company Tacqueria, which serves excellent migas, though perhaps it is not the Chowhound-esque obscure eatery it would be so fun to report here.  I lost a contact and spent the rest of the trip looking like Captain Hook.  We flew on a plane.  We ate carbonara for dinner, again relying on Oscar Meyer, and substituting Madeira for the usual vermouth because I was out of vermouth, and that was a little weird but whatever.  We went to bed. And now I’m late.  For work. Houston’s looking better and better.   8:06:32 AM    comment []