Slow Cooked Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Rosemary and Garlic

This is a triumph.
A masterpiece!
Basically this sh*t was awesome.

Here's' how I did it.

You will need

• Leg of lamb (shoulder?)
• Fresh Rosemary
• Fresh garlic 6-7 cloves
• Sea Salt
• Butter
• Cotton Cooking twine

 So you want to be a millionaire? Or maybe you just want to eat like one. Here's how.

Take your lamb, remove the bone, and do some butterflying with your knife, fat side down. You know long slits designed to expose more of the surface of the meat.

Anyway trim up some of the hangy bits and pieces but leave the layer of fat on the side.

Take your garlic and chop it up. Next add 1 tbsp salt and keep chopping till you have developed a paste. Rub it on. Rub it in. Wash hands... Um.. anyway strip the branches of the rosemary reserving any of those little pieces of wood for later and add the leaves to the meat as shown.

Throw in a couple of pieces of butter. (keeps the inside from drying out not to mention makes it buttery) Now you want to tie the sucker up.

Let's do that.

Notice how you can make individual loops if you go under the previous loop. That's the secret. Make sure you cut a 4 or 5 foot legnth to make sure you have enough.

Repeat and tie it tight. You don't want the butter to escape do you?

It should look like a masochist when you're done.

So now it's time to cook it. I did it on the Big Green Egg. You can do the same, but only if you have one. Stefanie was coming home late so I kept the thing between 200 and 300 for about 5 hours.

For your sake lets say 2 hours in the oven at 350 or until, according to Alton Brown) the internal temperature is equal to 135 degrees. From that same recipe I learned the rosemary branches, nay, the entire plant can be smoked. On the smoker. For more flavor.

So here it is. Fat side up over a pan so all the juicy drippings have to make their way over the meat and around before dropping off into the pan.

When it's done, cut off the cotton and get down to business.

Yum.

Red Lentil Curry and Onion Cakes

So here's a side dish that I found online one time (a long time ago) and have never been able to find since. So I decided to give it another try. Lentils are an amazing food nutritionally and are really dynamic as far as things you can do with them. Be looking for the main dish tomorrow. Here's a hint. It's a stuffed leg of lamb.

You will need

• Red lentils (1.5 Cups)
• 1 Onion (Medium Chop)
• 2 Tbsp Curry Powder
• 1 Tbsp Garlic Salt
• 1 Egg
• 4 tbsp Flour
• Veggie oil

This one's pretty simple and can be used as the main course in a vegetarian dish or vegan if you sub 1 tbsp ground flax seeds 3 tbsp water for the egg. Thanks to theppk.com for that.

Start by soaking the Lentils for a couple hours. Careful about the size of your container they will double in size.

Throw them in the food processor for a couple of turns until they are chopped but not a paste, like so.

Transfer to  a mixing bowl and add your other ingredients.

The egg, flour, onion, and spices all can go together and then give that a good stir.

Now you're ready to make your pancakes.

Heat your skillet over medium heat. Add some oil to the bottom of the pan it will start to lose viscosity as it heats. That's how you know it's ready. Smoking oil is probably a little too hot.

Make a patty and gently lay it in the pan. Remember you are cooking with hot oil, which was used as a weapon in the middle ages becasue it HURTS when you get it on you. Please be careful.

Keep your eye on them till they look good. Like this.

Throw a little salt on them and enjoy!
Yum.

They're pretty good cold too for picnics and the like.

This recipe probably makes 10-20 depending on how big you like your cakes.

I'm entering this dish in the side dish showdown on Cinnamon and Spice and Everything Nice which is a great blog that makes me drool every time.

Jambalaya done the right way

So I came across this recipe for jambalaya from Jerry Odum down in Louisiana. I decided to whip some up and here's what happened.

You will need

• 1 lb smoked sausage ($3.00)
• 4 chicken leg quarters ($4.50)
• 1 lb uncooked shrimp, mussels, clams, crayfish, oysters or other seafood of your choice
• Jasmine Rice (4 cups)
• Bayou Blast (Emeril's spices) 4 tbsp
• 3 Large stalks celery (diced)
• 4 large sweet onions (large chop)
• 2 bunches scallions (green onions)
• 2 red bell peppers (diced)
• 1 qt fresh chicken stock

So I started this one out by heating up my cast iron skillet over an open flame. Luckily I have a green egg so this was not that difficult. I put some Rajun Cajun Spicy smoked sausage on the edge and let it smoke some more (twice smoked sausage anyone) while I heated up the pan. (to about 300-350 it has to be cast iron)
I recommend de-boning the leg quarters. If you need help learning how to do that leave me a comment and I'll post it.

First prep your veggies like a good sous. Or be like the professionals and have someone else do it.

Put a drop of oil on the pan and spread it around with a paper towel. Start them skin side down after making sure there are no little bits of cartilage or gristle on the non skin side. Let them brown in the pan for a while 5-10 minutes then flip.

Like so.

Ok now set all that stuff aside and add in the onion and celery. Leave the grease in the pan. That is bayou culinary gold.

Now Jerry Odum makes this astute observation "[about the onions] Don't burn them or the whole recipe is screwed." I agree.

So this will cook for maybe 30 minutes or so while the onions get nice and soft and yummy.

You can use this time to cut up your chicken and sausage.

When the onions are ready add your meats and chicken stock till it just about covers everything. Let that simmer for another 15 minutes and you can add your other veggies.

Oh man. I just love these pictures.

Let that simmer for another 15 minutes before adding the rice and the shrimp/seafood.

Editor's note: when I made this I had to take 1/2 the recipe out of one pot and put it in another because I overflowed. You need a Large pot. This recipe will probably feed 10.

Make sure you get the pot off of direct heat after you add the rice or you will end up with crispy rice. Which is fine if you like that sort of thing.

Cook for 15 minutes until the rice starts looking good and then flip everything in the pan so that the rice from the top is buried. Add stock if necessary.

That's a lot of jambalaya.
Yum.