Lamb and asparagus are very seasonal, but what is really the star of this dish is the goat cheese sauce. I used a French artisan raw milk goat cheese, a Selles sur Cher appellation d’origine protegée. I used neck of … Continue reading Lamb with Asparagus and Goat Cheese Sauce
Friends were coming over for dinner. He loves Burgundy wines, especially red. That goes well with meat dishes like Boeuf Bourguignon, but she doesn’t eat meat. What to prepare? Then I remembered the great pairing of a Chambolle-Musigny (red Burgundy) … Continue reading Tuscan Bean Soup (Minestra di Fagioli)
Although I purchased my pressure cooker for making stocks, I thought it would be nice to try making a pressure-cooked stew as well. Pressure cookers are known as “fast cookers” (or actually “fast cooking pan”, “snelkookpan”) in Dutch, and in this case it is true because stewing beef in a pressure cooker only takes 20 minutes instead of 3 hours. Stating it like that is cheating a bit, because after those 20 minutes you need to wait for about half an hour for the pressure to go down. But still, it still means that you only have to start cooking 75 minutes or so before you’re having boeuf bourguignon and that is kind of nice. Continue reading “Pressure-Cooked Boeuf Bourguignon”
The ‘secondo’ (main dish) for my lamb extravaganza was this: neck of lamb sous-vide, rack of lamb, parsley root puree and roasted chervil root, served with a lamb jus. The recipes for the parsley root and chervil root will follow in my next post, this post will deal with the neck of lamb. The neck is one of the tastiest cuts of lamb, but also one of the toughest because the neck musles are used a lot. It is ideally suited for cooking sous-vide, which will make it melt-in-your-mouth tender while keeping it succulent. For a good crispy crust I both … Continue reading Neck of Lamb Sous-Vide
Hare loin (“hazenrugfilet” in Dutch) is the most prized part of a hare: it is very tender but lean red meat with a lot of flavor. Hare has a ‘gamey’ taste, which is not appreciated by everyone. Hare loin is often served with sweet garnishes or sauces such as port and figs, but it also works great with sauerkraut. You can hunt, skin, and butcher your own hare, or you can just get it from the butcher. This preparation is quite easy if you already have the hare loins and hare stock. I used steamed chestnuts as they are sold … Continue reading Hare Loin with Sauerkraut and Chestnuts
Lamb shoulder is really good if it’s slow cooked, so sous-vide is the obvious way to cook this cut of lamb. The meat will be amazingly tender and juicy. When slow-cooking lamb, make sure it’s from an ewe (female lamb). Rams (male lambs) have a strong smell that will be accentuated by long cooking. At Librije I discovered how good lamb and goat cheese are together. If you don’t have sous-vide equipment, roast a leg of lamb in the oven and serve it with some pieces of good French raw-milk goat cheese at room temperature (don’t let it melt) and a … Continue reading Lamb Shoulder sous-vide with Goat Cheese
I had not made Boeuf Bourguignon in a long time, but was inspired by Conor’s post to make it again. As Conor rightly points out, there is no such thing as an official recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon. The only mandatory ingredients are beef (boeuf is indeed French for beef…) and red Burgundy wine. Conor’s recipe looked OK and since he seems to know what he’s writing about I decided to follow his recipe, including using pancetta even though that’s not very French (but I like pancetta better than bacon). I was not disappointed because it turned out delicious and my husband … Continue reading Boeuf Bourguignon à la Conor
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