Usually I am a substance over form kind of guy, but this time around I went for the look — without forgetting about flavor of course! The flavors in this dish are a classic combination: lamb, rosemary, eggplant, and potato. I decided to cut all ingredients into cubes of roughly equal size, and serve the dish as a mosaic. I don’t like wasting food so the cubes are not as perfect as they would be in a Michelin starred restaurant. This is a nice dish to impress your friends as the ‘wow factor’ is in the presentation and the preparation is otherwise pretty straightforward.

I used lamb loin fillet for the meat as it is the most tender party of the lamb. Pink eggplant as they are more tender than regular eggplant, but you could use regular eggplant as well. And a nice lamb demi-glace red wine sauce, created by reducing lamb stock. Rosemary is what brings it all together. I cooked the lamb sous-vide, but as the cubes are quite small you could simply brown them a bit longer and allow them to rest to be cooked to the core.

Ingredients

For 2 servings

300 grams (.66) lamb fillet, cut into 14 cubes

1 eggplant, preferably pink, cut into 14 cubes

450 grams (1 lb) potatoes, cut into 14 cubes

2 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary

salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil

3 Tbsp lamb demi glace, created by reducing lamb stock

80 ml (1/3 cup) red wine

Preparation

Season the lamb with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Combine it with a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of minced rosemary.

Vacuum seal if cooking sous-vide for an hour at 50ºC/122ºF, or allow to marinate for an hour at room temperature.

Meanwhile, cut the eggplant into cubes.

Sprinkle them with salt and allow to stand for half an hour to draw out the juices.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Soak in cold water to remove excess starch.

Preheat the oven to 225ºC/440ºF.

Pat the potatoes dry and add a bit of olive oil as well as 1/2 Tbsp rosemary. Toss to coat.

Pat the eggplant cubes dry as well and toss with 1/2 Tbsp rosemary and olive oil to coat. Arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Roast the potatoes and eggplant in the oven at 225ºC/440ºF for 20 minutes. Then turn all the cubes around.

After all the cubes have been turned, return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

When you have cooked the lamb sous-vide, pat dry before continuing.

Brown the lamb in olive oil (or clarified butter) over high heat.

Brown the lamb on all sides, then take it out of the pan and wrap in aluminum foil to rest.

Pour any excess fat from the pan and deglaze with red wine. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spatula to get all of the flavor from the browned bits into the sauce.

Sieve the red wine sauce and add the lamb demi-glace (which I keep in an ice cube tray in the freezer).

Cook over medium heat until thick and syrupy. (Don’t forget to add the juices that will leak from the lamb while it is resting to the sauce as well. Never let any flavor go to waste!)

Check whether the potatoes and eggplant are nicely golden brown.

Arrange the lamb, potato, and eggplant in a mosaic pattern on warm plates. Drizzle the lamb with the sauce and serve.

Wine pairing

This is excellent with pinot noir. Use the same wine for the sauce for an even better match. That is not a waste of a good wine, and 1/3 cup is only half a glass anyway.

Flashback

Two years ago I baked this wonderful Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cake) from scratch. It is definitely worth the effort, and yet another post that features amarena cherries.