Silere Alpine Origin Lamb from New Zealand.....The Lord of The Lambs!!!

      
   Lamb. What's in a name? Quite a lot actually as I found out just last weekend when the kind people at Marx foods offered me a chance to sample something I'd never heard of before. Silere Alpine Origin Merino Lamb. To be honest, I've never made a study of lamb. I know about chicken, beef, fish certainly, and lots and lots about various vegetables. But lamb is just lamb, right? The only thing I knew about Merino lamb was that I have a drawer full of Merino wool sweaters. As it turns out I was wrong. There's a lot to learn about lamb and I was about to get an education.
 
   I don't eat a great deal of meat, in fact most of the last year I've been on a vegetarian if not vegan diet. Recently however, I've decided to incorporate a bit of meat into my eating, and on occasion, also add some dairy. I've been careful to use grass-fed, naturally-raised meats and only pastured dairy products. Luckily, living here in the heart of California Wine Country, that's not been hard to come by. We're surrounded by ranches and farms. However as it turns out, some of the best lamb in the world doesn't come from here or any where near here. It comes from Middle Earth.

   Actually I'm talking about New Zealand, home of Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings and some of the damnedest fine lamb anyone could possibly enjoy. As a screenwriter I'm used to thinking of New Zealand like this:

As a chef I've now learned to think of it like this:

Viggo, delicious:

Silere Alpine Origin Merino Lamb, also delicious but in a different way.

Yes, they're ready for their close-up.

   You can't get more natural than Alpine grazed meat, and the Merino lamb I found to have a much lighter flavor, not fatty or gamy. Most of the time In cooking lamb, the meat overpowers almost everything which is why people pair it with strong flavors such a mint. The Silere lamb I cooked was leaner, delicate, and the flavors blended perfectly with the Indian spices I used. I decided that we should share this lamb with friends and who better than the people who make CocoaPlanet chocolate. I knew Anne and Jeff would be great lamb judges as they both have excellent palates. It was the prefect excuse for a dinner party, not that I need much encouragement. I'm always ready to cook!

  Cooking the Silere lamb was the easy part, as one does not want to do too much so that the meat stays tender and juicy. I could then devote some thought to a proper sauce which turned out to be a Sikandari Raan, a delicately flavored traditional sauce with a North Indian / Afghan influence. The sauce is very easy to make and can definitely be made ahead. Since the lamb cooks up quickly this is a great time saver. The perfect company dinner.

Silere Alpine Grazed Merino Lamb In Sikandari Sauce

Here's What You Need:
4 Silere Alpine Grazed Merino Lamb Loins
1 and 1/2 tsp Kashmiri chili
4 tbs coconut oil, or other vegetable oil

 3 cloves
4 green cardamom pods
3 black cardamom pods
A 2 inch stick of cinnamon
2 star anise
1 bay leaf
4 medium onions thinly sliced
2 tsp ground coridaner
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1 Tbs tomato paste
1 tsp salt or to taste
1/2 cup of yogurt

Here's What To Do:
Put on your onion goggles and start slicing the onions...

...like this:

Set them aside.

In a kadhai or skillet heat 4 Tbs of coconut or vegetable oil.

When the oil is hot, toss in the star anise, green and black cardamom pods, the bay leaf, cloves and cinnamon stick.

Saute the spices for one minute. They'll start to puff up a bit, then toss in your sliced onions.

Cook the onions until they're translucent and soft, then add in the Kashmiri Chili powder.

Add in the ground coriander, cumin, and turmeric and tomato paste.

Saute everything until the oil starts to separate from the sauce. Add in the salt.

When everything is well mixed, remove the bay leaf and put everything else into a blender or food processor.

Grind it up really well you want to avoid any hard pieces of spice left over. You can pour it through a strainer or cheese cloth to prevent this.
Set your sauce aside. If you are going to use it later or the next day, keep it covered in the fridge.
Before you cook your lamb make sure to bring it to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees
I found that the best way to cook this lamb was to sear it in hot hot hot cast iron and then finish it in the oven. One wants the internal temperature to be about 125 degrees for medium rare lamb.
Salt and pepper the lamb loins on both sides.
Place an empty, heavy, cast iron pan on the fire and heat that baby up.
When it's hot, hot, hot, lay the lamb loins in it fat side down. Cook them for about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, as you see in the background, I'm heating the sauce on simmer. When it warms up, add in the yogurt, 1/4 cup at a time. The idea here is to make surer the sauce is smooth creamy and not overpoweringly hot. It depends no how much chili you or your guests like. The yogurt tames things down to whatever level one desires.
After about 4 minutes, turn the loins over and cook them on the other side for another four minutes.
After that take the whole pan and put it into the oven for another 10 minutes or so to finish.

Use a meat thermometer. When the lamb is 125 degrees inside, it's done medium rare unless you like it more well done, in which case, back into the oven for another few minutes.
After you take the meat out of the oven let it rest for about 10 minutes.
Slice the meat into medallions.

Brush a layer of the sikandari sauce across one side of the plate, and lay the medallions on it.

Adjust them.

Drizzle a bit of the sauce across the top of the meat and serve it up.

I served this dish with Basmati rice with whole spices, Indian spinach and corn.

   I served a salad of spiced chickpeas with mango and grapes as a starter. It was amazing. The  spices in the sauce accented the lamb, but did not overpower it, and vice versa. The meat was succulent, juicy, and tender. I am now totally hooked on this amazing grass fed lamb which is so easily prepared. In fact it takes such a little bit of cooking to be perfect, it's hard to mess up. I'm two steps away from wanting to move to New Zealand.

   This is the lamb, that a Hobbit would enjoy and you know how much they love to eat!!!

I'd love to share more lamb recipes with you if you'll just click on the link and give me your vote for my recipe in the   Marx Food Silere Lamb Contest   I'd really appreciate it!
   I'd like to thank the Becca Lee and all great folks at Marx Foods and Silere Alpine Origin Lamb for allowing me this amazing tasting experience, thanks for spoiling me. Coming up next, great sides to serve with great lamb follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Korma, An Indian Restaurant Comes To Your Kitchen. Now with Goat!

   Lately it seems as though I've been making food for large groups of people, finger foods for awards night, buffets for birthday parties. I just couldn't do anymore big crowd feeds. I was done for a while with racing around between steaming bamboo cookers and trays of samosas. I was having parties but barely getting out of the kitchen. I still wanted to cook, I just wanted to be able to sit down at the table with a manageable number of  guests and actually enjoy myself for once. So I resolved (sort of a belated new Years Resolution) to have a series of small dinners, especially small dinners where big parts of the meal could be made ahead of time. Thus, the Goat Korma feast.

   One of my good friends here in Sonoma, and my cooking mentor/godmother/kitchen role model is Paula Wolfert. Paula is the one who got me started cooking in clay 6 years ago. She gave me my very first clay pots and showed me how to cure and use them. Paula and her husband novelist Bill Bayer are part of our group of usual suspects here in town and we always love hanging out over a long leisurely lunch. About a week ago Bill had to be out of town and I decided it would be great to cook for Paula while he was away. What made it double great was the fact that her son Nick would be visiting during that time and we really wanted the opportunity to visit with another fellow LA/Sonoma transplant. Throw in our usual taste tester Mr. X and I now had my feasters.

   Lamb, or Goat Korma is a standard Indian restaurant dish. If you've ever eaten at an Indian restaurant, most likely there's been Korma on the menu. It's curry dish served in a mild almond sauce made with cream, yogurt and sometimes even coconut milk for the lactose intolerant. It can be made with lamb, goat, chicken or game and there is even a vegetarian version which I will be getting to soon. I make my Korma with meat on the bone. I feel it adds a lot more flavor and also what I look for is falling off the bone tender.

   Any Korma starts with the meat being seared to brown it and seal in the juices. It's then slowly cooked dum style, that is slowly, in a sealed pot. I cook mine in clay. It can also be made in the infamous slow cooker, aka the "Crock Pot." That's where the cook-ahead part comes in, so you can wake up the morning of your dinner party and say, "well that's done." Always a good feeling.

   Korma is also a showy, fancy pants dish. Since it originated with the cooking of the  Royal Court in Persia then migrated to India with the Mughals, this is not your grandpa's lamb stew.. Korma is an event meal, special guests, royal weddings, birthdays you get the picture. Hell, just  think up a celebration and Korma's your dish, which is why I chose to cook it for Paula. I made my Korma with goat, but the recipe works the same with lamb.

Royal Lamb or Goat Korma

Here's What You Need:
  
4 lbs of lamb or goat shoulder, bone in (have the butcher cut the leg with the bone into slices) If you're using boneless meat you'll need about 2 lbs.)
8 large shallots
A 1 inch piece of ginger peeled and chopped
5 Tbs of blanched almond slivers
1 cup of water
4 Tbs of coconut oil or vegetable oil
10 whole green cardamom pods
6 whole cloves
A 1 inch long stick of cinnamon
2 brown onions finely chopped
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp kashmiri chili or 1/4 tsp cayenne mixed with 1/4 tsp paprika
Salt to taste
1 and 1/4 cups of heavy cream, or yogurt, or coconut milk.
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 cup thinly sliced  almonds
1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro

Here's What To Do:

Put the 5 Tbs of slivered almonds, shallots, ginger, and 6 Tbs of water into a blender. Blend it into a paste and set it aside.
Heat the vegetable or coconut oil in a large pot, and when it's hot add in the pieces of meat.

Place the meat in 1 layer across the surface of the pot and sear it until it's browned on all sides. You may have to do the meat in batches. When it's done take it out, and set it aside.
Since I was cooking in clay, I then transferred the oil from the pot (after cooling it quite a bit to avoid cracking the clay) to my clay pot.
Put the cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick into the hot oil the meat was browning in.
Stir them around, in a few seconds the spices will start to swell up and get fragrant.

Add in the onions.

Stir fry the onions until they are a light brown.
Turn down the heat to the medium range and add in the paste from the blender.

Cook the paste for about 4 minutes then  add in the coriander, cumin and chili.

Stir fry the spices a bit, about 3 minutes or so.
Add in the meat pieces, and any juices, salt, cream, 1/2 cup of water.

Bring everything to a boil.
Once it's boiling, turn it all down to low and simmer everything with the lid on the pot.

Now, most recipes say you should cook this for an hour or so until the meat is tender. Stir it often and make sure nothing is sticking. I cook my korma in clay I simmer it for about 5 hours on a very low heat, just as one would cook something in a crock pot. I check it occasionally, and once it's in the simmer stage it's really no trouble.

When the korma is done transfer it to a Pyrex bowl and stick it in the fridge for overnight storage. The day of the dinner party, take it out, skim any fat that's accumulated from the top and slowly reheat it.

When cooking in clay I just keep it on a back burner of the stove on a low temperature for another 3 to 4 hours while everything else is cooking. This results in very tender falling off the bone meat.

Just before serving the Korma, stir in 1/4 tsp of garam masala.
Sprinkle the top of the dish with chopped cilantro and the thinly sliced almonds.

This recipe will feed 6 to 8 people.

   I served this goat korma with a  rice cooked with whole spices and fried onions, Spinach and Corn , a mango coconut salad, watercress and shallot salad, a salad of thinly sliced mooli (Daikon radish) and an onion, tomato and cucumber salad. So, one hot entree, accompanied by rice, a hot vegetable dish, and a variety of small fresh salad bowls. Of course there had to be chapattis. What's a dinner without chapattis? That gave me a chance to break out the Rotito Rolling Board the nice people at GitaDini sent me a while back.

It's got a place for everything (box for flour, hole to stash the rolling pin, easy to clean surface) and everything in its' place. I love this thing!

 

 

A good thing for me since I consider myself a very messy cook and usually need to be hosed down before I'm allowed at table with my guests. By the end of my cooking "process" it usually looks as though I've been fighting raccoons.

   Here I am screaming to take away the camera. Paula, who is neat and clean is highly amused. I meanwhile am waiting for some kitchen maven to make a designer drop cloth//hostess gown that I can wear while entertaining. You hear me Snuggie People?? There's a market out there.

  I've had some requests for the actual Chicken version of my Cauliflower cooked like a chicken dish. That will be coming up along with lots and lots of vegetarian dishes since spring is here in Sonoma and our Tuesday night  Farmers Market opens next week. Can't wait. There will also be granitas as it's getting hot here in Sonoma..   Meanwhile, follow along on Twitter at @kathygori.