Food fit for a (roomful of) blogger(s)
Last night, Adriana and I threw a party for Shel Israel and his wife. I did the food, which was well received. Cooking for 20 feels like less of a sure thing than cooking for a normal dinner party, so I was particularly pleased that people enjoyed the food. (But as God is my witness, I will never again trim the fat from and cube 15 pounds of lamb.) I had a few requests for the recipes, so I’m putting them here. All measurements are rough estimates; difficult to go wrong unless you OD on the herbs.
To make the lamb stew for eight people, all you do is this: Cut some lamb into cubes and brown in a wide soup pot. (Even after trimming off as much visible fat as you can possibly trim, lamb tends to be quite fatty, so you do not need to use any olive oil in this dish.) When no pink remains on the outside of the meat, drain as much fat off as you can. To the lamb, add one huge (or two medium-sized) chopped red onion, a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic, a teaspoon each of chopped thyme and rosemary, two cups of vegetable stock (I like Marigold), two glasses of red wine (optional), two cups of chopped tomatoes, a couple of spoonfuls of rinsed capers, and a handful of sliced green and black olives. Bring it all to the boil, then leave to simmer for at least two hours while you forget about it. Serve with couscous (easiest), rice, quinoa, or similar bulky starch.
You can do a vegetarian version of this by just leaving out the meat (and hoping that nobody brings uninvited vegetarian guests along without giving you warning, because between the veggies you planned for meticulously and the ones you didn’t know were coming, you end up with not quite enough to stuff the faces of all the veggies and thus are an utter failure of a caterer. If people aren’t clutching their stomachs from the pain of having been fed so much, your food = sucky. It’s an eastern European thing, I’m sure, and my brain can’t talk my genes out of it.).
The chocolate raspberry pavlovas were made from a Nigella Lawson recipe, and thanks to Antoine’s mother for doing the bases for me (extra thick double cream and raspberries can be dumped on at the very last minute).