Last Saturday my mom and I picked up two nice pieces of leg of lamb at the farmers market. My mom had wanted a butterflied leg, but they only had them with the bone in. None of the pieces they had were big enough, so we got two. Despite my complete lack of butchering skills, I decided that it couldn’t be that hard to bone a leg of lamb.

I was sure that Julia would come through for us, but the Art of French Cooking only provided us with an illustration and an assurance that though a butcher could provide us with a boned leg of lamb, we could certainly do it ourselves. From this I concluded that it must be so simple to do that Julia didn’t feel it necessary to provide instructions. In fact it really was pretty simple, and would have been a piece of cake if I had a good knife. My parents don’t exactly have the sharpest knives.

Its really just a matter of finding the right place to start cutting. If you just take a few minutes to get to know your piece of meat and figure out where the bones are, you’ll find a natural line to cut along. Then you just have to cut down the length of the bone, and then run the knife along the bone as close to the bone as possible until the bone is free.

When you’re done you’ll have a big slab of meat that you can lay out flat. Your brother might want the bone for his dog. Don’t give it to him. Make some stock instead.

Now chop up a few cloves of garlic and a handful of fresh rosemary. Add a splash of wine vinegar, lots of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

Lay out the meat skin side down and rub the garlic mixture all over it.

Now roll it back up like it was before you started cutting and tie it securely with some twine. You might need some help. Don’t tie it too tight.

Then rub whatever garlic oil you have left all over the outside. If you have time let the meat rest for a while.

Roast at 400 degrees until the outside is nice and brown and the internal temperature reaches about 140 degrees (for medium). Cover with foil and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes before slicing. The pan juices make a very nice gravy just the way they are, or with the addition of a splash of wine.

This week I brought home two of my favorite spring treats, asparagus and rhubarb. Those mesclun greens smell so amazing it’s a shame the whole smell-o-vision thing never took off. I tried a new kind of cheese from Cato Corner, less creamy than their delicious Bloomsday cheese, with a bit more bite. Its really good. And some milk of course.

My mom came along this time and got a nice big leg of lamb, asparagus, some tiny potatoes, a bunch of ramps, and a ridiculously huge bag mesclun greens, which we are going to eat today for Mother’s Day.

]]> http://cookingthehardway.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/this-week-at-the-farmers-market-5102008/feed/ kate http://cookingthehardway.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/my-favorite-chocolate-cake/ http://cookingthehardway.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/my-favorite-chocolate-cake/#comments Sat, 10 May 2008 01:13:36 +0000 kate http://cookingthehardway.wordpress.com/?p=249

This is the perfect chocolate cake. It’s moist and dense and not too rich or too sweet. There are no gimmicks involved. It’s just chocolate cake. It’s called Chocolate Dump-it Cake, a name which refers to how non-fussy the recipe is. There is no beating, creaming, or folding involved. Everything is just quickly whisked together and dumped in the pan. The batter is so thin you’ll think you’ve done something wrong. But really, it’s supposed to be that way. Descriptive as the name may be, it really doesn’t do the cake justice. In my mom’s 1960 Good Housekeeping Cookbook, there’s an aptly named recipe which has been made for many a holiday breakfast. So in the spirit of Special Day Waffles, I’m renaming this cake Special Day Chocolate Cake.

Adapted from Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser, by way of NPR

For the cake:

• 2 cups sugar
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon semi-coarse sea salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting:

• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups sour cream, at room temperature

Before you do anything else, take the sour cream out of the fridge. It will take a lot longer than you think for it to come up to room temperature. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put the sugar, butter and chocolate in a saucepan along with a cup of water. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until everything is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Transfer chocolate mixture to a large mixing bowl and set aside to cool a little bit while you do everything else. In a small bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside. Combine the milk and vinegar and set that aside too. Now grease and flour a 9-inch bundt pan.

Stir the milk mixture into the chocolate mixture. Then whisk in the eggs. Whisk in the dry ingredients about a quarter at a time, just until everything is combined. Whisk in the vanilla. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake in the pan to cool for about 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Now make the frosting. I hope you took the sour cream out of the fridge when I told you to. Heat the chocolate chips in a double boiler, stirring frequently, until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool. Now this is the trickiest part of the whole recipe. The sour cream and the chocolate have to be at the same temperature when you mix them together. If the chocolate is too hot it will do bad things to the sour cream and the frosting will be grainy. If the sour cream is too cold it will harden the chocolate into little lumps. Once the chocolate and the sour cream are at room temperature start stirring the sour cream into the chocolate a little at a time until its nice and smooth. Now spread it on the cake.

I think this cake is at it’s best after a day or so in the fridge.

When I saw the asparagus at the farmers market this week I knew it was time to make one of my favorite spring dinners. This is one of my mom’s recipes. Actually I think it started out as just fettuccine and asparagus, but then all of a sudden one night it had salmon in it. It is very delicious either way. And it always seems to be easier and quicker to make than I remember it to be.

• 1/2 pound penne pasta
• 1/2 pound asparagus (look for skinny ones)
• 1/2 pound wild salmon fillet*
• 2 cloves garlic
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup heavy cream
• juice of half a lemon (or a whole lemon if your lemon is on the smaller side)

Break off the tough bottom parts of the asparagus. If you hold the bottom of the stalk in one hand and the middle in the other hand and bend it, the tough part will snap off in just the right place like magic. Put the asparagus in a baking pan and pour a little olive oil over it. Crush a clove of garlic on top and add few grinds of pepper and a little salt. Roll the asparagus around in the pan so that everything gets well coated. The salmon gets more or less the same treatment. Place the salmon in a pan, skin side down. Crush a clove of garlic on top, a little salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil. Rub it all in a little. Bake them both at 450 degrees until the asparagus is tender and the salmon is just cooked through. The asparagus will take about 15 to 20 minutes, the salmon will take about 10. Meanwhile, cook the pasta.

When the asparagus is done, cut it into one to two inch pieces. Break the salmon up into bite size hunks with a fork. Once the pasta is cooked and the asparagus and salmon are done, make the sauce. It only takes a minute. Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. Then add the cream and bring to a simmer over low heat. Stir in the lemon juice. That’s it. Combine the pasta and asparagus in a large bowl. Pour the sauce over it and toss well. Then add the salmon and toss gently so that the hunks of salmon stay relatively intact.

* Do you have one of these? Print one out and keep it in your wallet. It’s to hard too keep track of which kinds of fish are ok to eat and which aren’t. This will help. More on that here.

Today at lunch time I went outside to take a walk and I stumbled upon the little farmers market at 115th and Broadway. It’s there every Thursday but I always seem to forget about it. Today I crossed the street and found two big tables covered in bunches of nice, skinny asparagus. It pretty much made my day. I heard rumors that there’s been asparagus at Union Square for the past few weeks, but you have to get up early to get it. I was hoping to find some last Saturday at my little neighborhood farmers market but things aren’t really quite in full swing there yet. At the other end of the block was a table piled high with beautiful radishes. Radishes are one of those foods that I could never decide if I liked or not until I learned to eat them slathered with butter. Now I can’t get enough of them.