April 17, 2017 Lunch - The Range, Dinner - Grilled Lamb Chops and Eggplant, Catalan Chard and Tzatziki Sauce

April 17, 2017 Lunch – The Range,  Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops and Eggplant, Catalan
 Chard and Tzatziki Sauce

Yesterday we went to Amy and Vahl’s for a lovely Easter potluck buffet with about a dozen in attendance.  Amy cooked our traditional favorites, baked ham and garlic grits.  Vahl made a wonderful kale salad with shredded Parmesan cheese. In the morning I cracked about two to three cups of the pecans Sami Singh gave me from his pecan grove and Suzette made a caramel sauce and a dough combining cream cheese and flour to make her Pecan Delights.  I chopped about 1 ½ cups of nuts and she filled several small cup cake sheets with a pastry crust of dough and filled the tart shells with chopped nuts and caramel sauce and then I garnished the top of each tart with a pecan half and Suzette baked the tarts in a 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.  We took a bottle of French apple cider (Sprouts $4.99/bottle) and a bottle of Gruet Sauvage Rose’ champagne.

For Sunday dinner Willy made pot stickers for us and I made a sauce of garlic chili sauce, soy and minced chives.

Today I called Mike and we decided to meet for lunch at the new Range restaurant at Rio Grande and I-40.  Mike ordered Huevos Rancheros and I ordered my new favorite. Country fried steak with mashed potatoes sautéed vegetables, white gravy for the steak and mushroom brown gravy for the mashed potatoes. The steak is round steak that has been tenderized by pounding it. The dish was served with sautéed vegetables.  Range make’s the most authentic Chicken Fried Steak I have found in Albuquerque, because their white and brown gravies are well made and delicious.  Chicken Fried steak is fried, so it is not good for you.  I eat it rarely, but my first day back at work from being out of the country for two weeks made me want to reconnect with my Texas roots.

I was uncomfortable for most of the afternoon, but it was worth it.

We invited Willy for dinner.  I thawed out the five lamb chops in the freezer.  Suzette came home early, so at 4:30 we drove to El Super and bought lots of produce for the May Mexican menu at Suzette’s Greenhouse Bistro.  We also bought an eggplant, limes, mangoes, mushrooms, queso fresco, Oaxacan String cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, and beef shanks.

When we returned home, I made tzatziki with fresh dill and oregano from the garden, plus a cup of Kirkland Greek yogurt, a chopped clove of Garlic, 1T. of Olive oil, ¼ cup of lemon juice,  one of the cucumbers diced, added a Greenhouse ripened diced tomato to make the tzatziki more salad-like.

Suzette went to the garden and picked a basket full of chard and de stemmed it while I cored and diced a gala apple for the Catalan Chard dish.

The eggplant I found at El Super was large and very fresh, so at $1.29 a real treat. All fruits and vegetables are now being sourced out of California according to the assistant head of produce, which still does not fully answer the question of where it was raised.

I sliced the lovely large eggplant into thick ¾ inch thick slices and brushed the slices with olive oil.  Suzette salted and peppered the lamb chops and eggplant slices.

When Willy came Suzette began grilling the lamb chops and eggplant slices and prepared the Catalan Chard.

Catalan Chard

This a simple and delicious way to eat Chard or spinach.  The dish falls within the category of dishes that I consider to the Iberian Jewish cuisine because of several sweet ingredients, such as the sautéed apples and raisins.

We began by sautéing the diced apples with ¼ cup of piñon nuts until they browned a bit.  Then we added ¼ cup of rehydrated raisins, or in this case dried raisins with 2 T. of Amontillado sherry of dry vermouth to rehydrate the raisins.  Then we added the chard and covered the large skillet with our wok cover to let the ingredients braze/sweat together.  After about ten minutes with some stirring to turn the chard to mix it into the liquid the dish was ready.

This seemed like it would be a good meal to celebrate a successful trip and return home, so I decided to open a good bottle of wine.  I opened a bottle of 2008 Castillo Clavijo Gran Reserva Cosecha.  This is a blend of 70% Tempranillo, 10 % Grenache, 10% Graciano, and 10% Mazuelo grapes.

Gran Reserva is the highest standard for aging, as determined by law.
Spanish labeling laws. The following summary is from Wikipedia.

“Spanish wines are often labeled according to the amount of aging the wine has received. When the label says vino joven ("young wine") or sin crianza, the wines will have undergone very little, if any, wood aging. Depending on the producer, some of these wines will be meant to be consumed very young - often within a year of their release. Others will benefit from some time aging in the bottle. For the vintage year (vendimia or cosecha) to appear on the label, a minimum of 85% of the grapes must be from that year's harvest. The three most common aging designations on Spanish wine labels are Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva.[5]

Crianza red wines are aged for 2 years with at least 6 months in oak. Crianza whites and rosés must be aged for at least 1 year with at least 6 months in oak.[5]
Reserva red wines are aged for at least 3 years with at least 1 year in oak. Reserva whites and rosés must be aged for at least 2 years with at least 6 months in oak.[5]
Gran Reserva wines typically appear in above average vintages with the red wines requiring at least 5 years aging, 18 months of which in oak and a minimum of 36 months in the bottle. Gran Reserva whites and rosés must be aged for at least 4 years with at least 6 months in oak.[5]”

Needless to say the best grapes and greatest care in production and aging go into a Gran Reserva.  The 2008 Castillo Clavijo was excellent, smooth as silk, but with a noticeable bit of acidity that gave the wine character.

Willy said that he loved the Catalan Chard and that, “It is my favorite way to eat chard and I love chard.”  We all agreed that it was a great meal.

Suzette cooked the lamb chops a little longer to please Willy and my palette.  We prefer our neat cooked to something between medium rare and medium.  The chops were still red in the Center, so probably closer to medium rare, which is probably closer to medium on Suzette’s scale of doneness than my scale of doneness.

The little extras of a great wine, an incredibly fresh eggplant, and the addition of a ripe tomato and fresh dill and oregano to the tzatziki elevated this meal from ordinarily wonderful to memorable.

This meal made me feel that we returned to Albuquerque just in time to experience the transition from Spring to Summer because it reminded me of the bountiful fresh food ingredients bestowed upon us by Mother Nature.

Bon Appetit