Michael Symon's Live to Cook_ Recipes and Techniques to Rock Your Kitchen - Michael Symon [77]
Squeeze the tomatoes one by one into the pan, pulverizing them by hand, and pour in their juice, too. Add the wine, beef bones, bay leaf, oregano, black pepper, and red pepper flakes, if using. Bring the sauce to a simmer, then reduce the heat to its lowest possible setting, and continue to cook for 8 hours. The sauce should reduce by about one third.
Taste for seasoning and add more salt if necessary. Remove the bones and bay leaf. If not using right away, let the sauce cool, then cover, and refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months.
ROASTED LEG OF LAMB WITH TZATZIKI SAUCE
This is a Greek-style classic at my house around the holidays. It used to be something we typically enjoyed around Easter time, but every now and then I’ll make it at Christmas or just for a family get-together that calls for a big and festive meal. I love John and Sukey Jamison’s lamb from their Jamison Farm in Pennsylvania (see Sources).
Serves 8
6 shallots, minced (about ¾ cup)
4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons coriander seeds, toasted and crushed (see Symon Says)
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
l½ tablespoons kosher salt
1 6-pound bone-in leg of lamb
Tzatziki Sauce
Mix together in a medium bowl the shallots, garlic, rosemary, sugar, coriander, red pepper flakes, and salt. Rub the mixture all over the surface of the lamb. Place in a large glass baking dish, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
Remove the lamb from the baking dish, rinse off the seasonings, and pat dry. Let the lamb sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Heat a roasting pan or large ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Add the lamb and brown on all sides, 7 to 10 minutes. Transfer the lamb, fat side up, to a roasting rack set into a roasting pan. Roast until the lamb reaches an internal temperature of 140°F, about 1½ hours.
Remove the lamb from the pan and set it aside to rest for 20 minutes.
Slice the lamb and serve with the tzatziki sauce.
ITALIAN BRAISED BEEF WITH ROOT VEGETABLES
My mom, Angel, has always been the best cook in the neighborhood and everybody knew it. In the 1970s and ‘80s, when most of my friends were eating fast food and processed junk, all the kids wanted to come to my house for dinner. (We weren’t going to go to the neighbors’ houses to eat TV dinners.) This is one of the meals Mom would fix when I was growing up because it was easy, delicious and inexpensive, and it fed a crowd.
This was my introduction to braising, the first braised dish I ever made—and I didn’t even know we were braising. Mom called it pot roast and we had it weekly. And in true Italian pot roast fashion, we’d eat it over rigatoni. I now sometimes serve it over Soft Polenta with Mascarpone, another excellent option. It showed me how much I loved the deep complex flavors of braises generally, which I prefer to eat over just about any other kind of dish. One of the pleasures of this meal is the big chunks of carrots and celery root that cook in that delicious liquid for four hours; they take on all the flavors of the braising liquid. They don’t taste like carrots and celery root anymore; they taste like a steak, and that’s why they’re so good.
A couple of critical steps in this recipe are getting a good sear on the meat and caramelizing the vegetables in the pot before deglazing. Beyond that, the red sauce is critical. And I also think it’s important that a third of the meat be above the liquid—one of the factors that for me defines braising—so pot size is important; it shouldn’t be so small that the meat is submerged or so big that the meat is sitting in just an inch of liquid.
Serves 6
3 pounds rump roast
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 onion, coarsely chopped
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