Monday, March 7, 2011

Pappardelle with lamb scraps

Eastside Road, March 7, 2011—
A LOCAL FARMER WAS SELLING meat and eggs at the farmstand outside yesterday's restaurant in Sebastopol, and how can you resist a couple of pounds of lamb scraps for six bucks?

Well, when I took stock of them (heh heh) today, they turned out to have precious little meat on them, but lots of marrow. So I browned them in oil, then covered them with water and made stock, adding a bouquet garni.

I chopped up an onion and browned it, then set it aside; I chopped up five or six little carrots and ditto; I tossed the little meat I'd managed to cut from the bones in bread crumbs and browned them, too. I deglazed the pot with Pinot grigio and added that to the stock. Then after a couple of hours I took a look at the stock pot. I drained it through a food mill into another pot, then fingered off as much meat as I could from the bones, and put it all through the food mill. The stock went back on the fire, and I skimmed off as much fat as I could, and salted it.

Later, while the pasta water was coming to its boil, I combined vegetables and meat in a saucepan, added a few ladles of the stock, adjusted salt and pepper, and threw in the peel of half a lemon, because the ragoût seemed to need a little pointedness, Not bad. Green salad.
Pinot grigio, La Familglia (Monterey, California), 2009 (rather nice)

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