Well, this was a mammoth dinner for a Wednesday night. It pays to read ahead of your recipe, especially for the bits that say refrigerate for one hour, or cook for one hour then refrigerate for another hour. However, I must say that this was a corker of a dinner and I am glad I persisted. Tonight we had Lamb cutlets with lemon pignoli crust, served with potato galette and Lemon souffle crepes with sauce suzette. When telling friends what I was cooking for dinner 100% asked, "What is Pignoli". Well to this day I don't know but it was delish.
I started out cooking the sauce suzette. Blanch lemon and orange rind 3 times in boiling water and rinsing in cold water. Set aside. Place 1/2 cup lemon and 3 cup orange in saucepan and let reduce for 45 minutes on medium heat to 1 1/4 cups. Add 1/2 tsp dissolved cornflour and whisk in. Whisk in 1/4 cup caster sugar and 1 1/2 tbs grand marnier. Add zest. till thickened.
Next I started on the potato galette. Heat up sliced potato in saucepan with 300ml thickened cream and 300ml milk and one small clove garlic. simmer till just tender. Transfer to oven proof dish, top ith parmessan cheese and bake for one hour. Let cool then place in fridge for a further hour. I cheated and only had it in the oven for 30 minutes. let the cream set a bit the cut out with food moulds or cookie cutter desired amout of galette. reheat in oven before serving.
Following the potato I made up the batter for the crepes - normal crepe mixture plus add in 2 tsp of dark rum and 2 tsp of grand marnier. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
Up next was the pignoli crust for the lamb cutlets. place1/4 cup each of Italian parsley and basil leaves into a food processor along with 2 1/2 tbs of pine nuts. Whizz these ingredients together till combined and chopped. Then add 60 gr chilled butter, 1/4 breadcrumbs1 small garlic clove, and 1/4 preserved lemon wedge. Pulse until smooth. Transfer herbed butter to plastic wrap and roll into a short 3 cm round roll. Chill for 1 hour. Again I cheated and threw it into the freezer for a bit then down into the fridge. After chilling the herbed butter time to cook the lamb. I cooked mine on a grill pan for a couple of minutes each side. Then place sliced butter onto the top of cutlets and placed under the griller for another couple of minutes till crusty. Serve up and plate with the galette.
The souffle of the crepes came with the help of Rose. while she made the crepes I had time to whisk 3 egg whites with lemon into stiff firm peaks, and whisk 3 egg yolks with 1/3 cup of caster sugar till thick and creamy. Then combined and folded together whites and yolks. Working together we folded crepes into quarters and filled top with the souffle mix and baked in 200 oven for 5 minutes. Yes the souffle rose up!! Serve with a reappearance of Heston's ice cream from a few weeks ago and with the sauce suzette and you are on another winner.
If it wasn't for the time factor I would be giving this a 5/5 wooden spoons. However after some discussion about whether it needed a Jus, (Rose was for, I was against) I am going to give the Lamb with pignoli crust a 4/5 wooden spoons.
The crepes with souffle and suzette sauce were a winner with me, I will def be doing these again sometime. 4/5 wooden spoons
Yes, it was quite a process to watch and then help with, this dinner! But a tasty result. I didn't think the lamb needed a sauce, just perhaps another vegetable for flavour, colour and texture. My suggestion was perhaps some roasted capsicum or a sun-dried tomato tapenade type accompaniment. The herbs on top of the lamb were very fragrant. It was like a pesto, without the oil! Pignoli, I've since learnt, refers to the pine nut element of this. My score for this is 3.5/5 wooden spoons, as my lamb was overcooked :( I still ate it all though!
ReplyDeleteThe crepes were lovely and light, and the sauce very lemony. It was a bit of a taste explosion when eating the sweet sweet ice-cream with the first dribbles of the lemon sauce. My tastebuds didn't know what to do. I think they worked it out in the end. Souffle in crepes was a new thing for me. It somehow worked and was light and airy. 4/5 wooden spoons
Sounds great although you must have been exhausted afterwards!
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