Tuesday 31 August 2010

August 2009 - Lamb Paprikash and Noodle Kugels

Goodness, all of the desserts that have been on the covers of the August issues have looked delectable and issue #85 was no different. The Almond croissant pudding with chocolate sauce looked divine and I am sure that it would taste incredible too. However being essentially a bread and butter pudding made with croissants and almonds and topped with chocolate sauce it would be a bomb of calories. 

Ben O'Donoghue's Pakistani spiced pumpkin sounded really good a nice vegetarian dish, although I a pretty sure that it would need to be served as part of a meal with at least another vegetarian dish or meat curry and rice. I really didn't feel like making that much food. 

I was very interested in Sophie Zalokar's Slow-cooked breast of Twin Lakes lamb with pomegranate molasses. I knew that I would not be able to get Twin Lakes lamb, since the article was a focus on regional Western Australia, however I am sure that I would be able to get a breast of lamb from the butcher. It is an interesting recipe that involves slow-roasting the lamb with various vegetables & herbs and rubbed with the pomegranate molasses. It is then chilled overnight, and then a tray placed on top of the meat and weighed down on it and chilled again. After all this the breast is then cut into wedges and eggwashed, crumbed, browned in a fry pan and then finished off in the oven. After this treatment I am sure that the lamb would be delightfully tasty and wonderfully tender. I have pomegranate molasses in the pantry, I had purchased it quite a while ago to use in a recipe and since then I have use it in vinaigrettes and I found a delightful recipe for Pomegranate cupcakes that used quite a bit of it. I don't have much left, not sure that I would have the full 1/2 cup called for in the recipe. I was considering making this lamb dish on the weekend as I have invited my grandparents for lunch on Sunday since it is father's day here in Australia this coming Sunday.

Ultimately, I decided to make Valli Little's Lamb paprikash and Noodle kugels. I had everything to make the dish with the exception of the lamb shanks. I thought that I had some diced lamb in the freezer that I could use in place of the lamb shanks in the recipe. I guess that I must have used it in something else as I couldn't find it in the freezer when I went looking. So I decided that I would forego the all pantry/freezer items for this recipe and I bought some lamb shanks. Unfortunately when I got them I didn't ask for frenched lamb shanks so they were not trimmed. This wasn't really a problem but they just didn't look very nice. The dish was very tasty. Although I have noticed that I tend to eat a lot of tomato based dishes and I think that it is time to branch out a bit on that. I made the noodle kugels using some spinach fettucine. I wasn't overly impressed with them. They were a bit stodgy and bland. They could, perhaps, be improved by some parmesan added. Although I don't think I would bother making them again. If I make the dish again I would probably serve it with some kind of mash, perhaps celeriac & potato or sweet potato. 

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