February 5, 2014 Lunch – Azuma Dinner – PPI Lamb Stew

February 5, 2014  Lunch – Azuma  Dinner – PPI Lamb Stew

I picked up Robert Mueller to Azuma for lunch in the Land Cruiser, since it was snowing today.  We stopped at Fano Bakery on the way to pick up my new favorite baguette in Albuquerque.  It is almost a double and costs $3.00. I bought two and the attendant cut one in half and put it in a separate plastic bag so I could freeze it. 

Robert bought a loaf of 9 grain bread for $4.00 warm from the oven.  I love Fano’s.

At Azuma we ordered the usual, Donburi Chirashi (12 pieces of raw fish and octopus on a bed of sushi rice with two daikon pickles and two pieces of omelet).  I drank green tea and Robert drank a Sapporo.

Lunch ended up taking two hours because Robert was willing to listen to me describe my Lower Rio Grande adjudication case.

After lunch I took Robert to his mechanic’s at San Pedro, south of Central to pick up his truck and then drove to Ta Lin to see what kind of fish they had and to check out the oysters.  Yesterday Suzette had mentioned wanting oysters.  She actually mentioned Fried Oyster poor boys, so since I had bought the best French baguette in Albuquerque, I thought we might try to make good use of it in a day or two.  Ta Lin had lovely fresh pink grouper ($6.98/lb.), but I settled on two 8 oz. jars of West Coast oysters ($4.29/bottle) and a pound of 30-40 count heads on shrimp ($6.95/lb.); the kind we use for Cajun BBQ Shrimp (there will probably be some good Cajun food in the near future).

I also bought a can of sliced water chestnuts, a bog of baby bok choy, some shallots, a bag of eight BBQ steamed buns. a green ginger root, and two kinds of mushrooms; Maitake ($1.99/package) and lobster ($2.99/lb.) to go with our shitake and white mushrooms.

When I got home, I cut the whole baguette into thirds and put them into a gallon freezer bag and put that into the fridge to keep it fresh.

When Suzette arrived home 6:30 p.m. we decided to eat the PPI lamb stew with a piece of garlic bread.

I fetched the lamb stew from the basement and sliced one of the baguette thirds in half lengthwise.

We poured the PPI herb and garlic flavored olive oil that we had cooked the pork confit through a strainer into a bottle and brushed the bread with some of the garlic laden residue to coat the bread with oil.  We then laid the baguette slices on a cookie sheet and baked them in a 350˚ oven for about fifteen minutes, while the lamb stew was heating on the stove.  When the lamb stew was hot we turned on the broiler above the bread and toasted the tops. 

We drank the rest of the PPI Leonelli Marchesi Chianti Superiore with the lamb stew and ate warm garlic toast with it.

We loved this simple, hearty meal on a cold snowy night.  The lamb stew was mostly vegetables, rutabagas, turnips, beets, potatoes, onion, mushroom and carrots.  I loved the thick stew of mostly vegetables with bits of lamb and its rich lamb flavor.    

Bon Appétit