I had a theme for the meal tonight because it is the Jewish Passover and the Eve of Easter. Yesterday Suzette and I tried to discuss and could not decide when Jesus was crucified, so there is this current of religious thought and so I picked a meat, lamb, associated with spring and a starch associated with Israel and we had lots of broccoli that needed to be cooked and because we are cooking simple dishes in the Northern California style, we decided to grill the lamb rack and create a Northern California style meal.
Before starting to cook I fetched a bottle of Andrianna’s Cuvee Cabernet Sauvignon from Summers Vineyard produced in Kinghts Valley, near Calistoga, California that was given to me as a Christmas gift by Joe and Aaron at Kaspia Group this last year and opened it so it could begin to breath for the 30 minutes it would take to complete the meal prep.
We like to flavor the cous cous with natural ingredients. Today Suzette went to our garden and picked about 1 cup of kale and I chopped about 1 Tbsp. of red onion and I put the kale and onion in a pot with 2 Tbsp. of butter and more water than cous cous and boiled that for about twenty minutes while Suzette grilled the lamb. Finally after 20 minutes the cous cous began to swell up and taste soft and the water began to evaporate. I put too much water into the cous cous I suspect, but it is the first time I have cooked Israeli cous cous and I wanted to make sure it had enough water to swell up. What I found was that after we stopped cooking it, it continued to swell and absorb liquid.
We basted the lamb with a PPI mint sauce (Joy of Cooking recipe with vinegar and sugar) after it was grilled and resting while the cous cous finished cooking. Then I cut the rack into chops and when the cous cous had cooked a bit more we plated up the food and I poured the Cabernet Sauvignon.
This simple, elegant and delicious dinner seemed to capture the spirit of Easter, Passover and Northern California Cuisine on one plate and in one glass.
The label on the cab seemed to capture the essence of the wine, “This is a bright red fruit with smoky oak aromas that lead to a mouthful bursting with blackberry and spicy tones.” The full bodied cab was a perfect complement to the strong and rich flavor of the lamb chops and the couc cous provided a creamy complement to the strong wine and meat flavors and the broccoli was a palate cleanser and green vegetable reprieve from those hugely dominating flavors.
We had had appetizers and Spanish wine with Ricardo and Cynthia at while discussing our plans for redoing our back yard, so we were not so hungry and a light meal was just right.
Bon Appétit
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