ember 20, 2012 Dinner –Grilled Lamb Chops with Rice and Stir Fried Bok Choy and Mushrooms

November 20, 2012 Dinner –Grilled Lamb Chops with Rice and Stir fried Bok Choy and Mushrooms

Breakfast – Fruit salad and Granola

Lunch – Duck Breast Salad, sliced duck breast, avocado, onions, and palm heart on a bed of organic greens

Dinner – In the morning I brought in a package of eight lamb chops (Costco $6.99/lb.) and marinated them in a freezer bag with 1 cup of PPI red wine, five sprigs of rosemary and 2 Tbsp. of Minar Ginger and Garlic Paste.  The Garlic and Ginger Paste (emulsified ginger, garlic, water, salt and vinegar) was purchased many years ago at an Afghan food store in San Diego and sits in the back of my fridge because the jar holds 26 oz. and it only takes about 2 oz. to flavor a marinade once every year or two.

At around 6:00 p.m., we decided to start cooking.  The only green vegetable we had was baby bok choy, so I de-stemmed the leaves and cut them into bite sized pieces, separating  the leaves  from the heavy stalks.  Then I cleaned ½ of a 150 g.  package of White Beech mushrooms (Ta Lin) and then cut about 1 oz. of fresh ginger root into slices and then strips, sliced and diced 2 oz. of yellow onion and two cloves of garlic.  I then heated 1 ½ Tbsp. of peanut oil in  the wok and threw in all the ingredients.  The wonderful thing about Beech mushrooms is that they look like big enoki mushrooms, but they will retain their shape as long as the heavier pieces of bok choy do, so you can stir fry them together. 

Suzette heated the PPI wild and basmati rice mixture in the microwave and tended the fire on the grill outside with the lamb chops.

When she said that the lamb chops were about 6 minutes from being done, I ran to the basement and fetched a bottle of Cutler Creek Cabernet Sauvignon and opened it and then I added a thickening sauce to the vegetables in the wok made from 1 Tbsp. of cornstarch, about 3 Tbsp. of water, 1 Tbsp. of soy sauce, 1 tsp. of sesame oil and 1 ½ Tbsp. of rice cooking wine.  For some reason I am over thickening my stir fry dishes.  I had to add additional water tonight also to bring the stir fry sauce to a reasonable consistency.

When Suzette brought the lamb chops in from the grill, she covered them with aluminum foil to let them sit for a few minutes while we adjusted the proportion of water in the vegetable sauce.  Then we were ready to eat.  We each scooped rice onto a plate and grabbed a lamb chop or two and then scooped stir fried bok choy and mushrooms onto the rice.

The Cutler Creek is an exceedingly light and clean wine with a mild character so it was a perfect complement to the subtle flavors of the bok choy and marinated lamb.  Suzette cooked the lamb chops to medium rare, which allowed much of the marinade to stay inside the meat and flavor the lamb with a red wine, garlic and ginger flavor.  Perhaps the most interesting thing about the meal was that the garlic and ginger flavors in the food did not clash but complemented each other so that an Afghani lamb dish and a Chinese stir fry dish worked together.  Sort of a Central Asian dinner.

Bon appètit