Rosemary and Mint-Roasted Lamb Breast with Yogurt Sauce

This recipe came from Sam Sifton in the New York Times. It’s almost the perfect recipe for such an affordable piece of lamb. Even at Whole Foods, 2 racks at about 3 pounds cost $12, probably the least expensive big-ticket item I’ve ever bought there.

As usual, I adjusted the recipe to work for me. I roasted the lamb for 2 hours without checking its internal temperature–the racks were thin enough to gauge by eye if they were cooked. I prodded the meat off the rib bones with a fork. The meat didn’t fall apart but it was quite soft and tasty that I called it done. I left the lamb in the roasting pan with all its juice tented with the foil to let it cool overnight without making it sweat. I only put it back in the fridge when I woke up 7 hours later.

It took another 14 hours before I seared them to serve. I sliced the ribs in half to fit a large frying pan and browned them for about 3 minutes on each side. I skipped the scallion accompaniment from the original recipe and instead served it with a simple mixed greens salad I collected from my garden, but the yogurt sauce was quite good with it.

Ingredients:
For the lamb:
1 head garlic, peeled
2 tbsps salt
1/4 cup olive oil
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
a handful of fresh mint, finely chopped
black pepper
lamb breast, about 3 lbs

For the yogurt sauce:
1 cup thick Greek-style yogurt
2 tbsps olive oil
2 tbsps lemon juice
4 tsps lemon zest
2 tbsps fresh mint, finely chopped
smoked paprika
salt, pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Using a mortar and pestle, mash the garlic and salt into a paste. Transfer to a bowl with a spatula. Gradually mix in the olive oil. Stir in the herbs and pepper.
2. Fit the lamb into an aluminum foil-lined roasting pan big enough to contain the racks. Smear them thoroughly with the paste, and place ribs-side down in the pan. Cover tightly with foil, and roast for no more than 2.5 hours. Meat should be wobbly but not falling apart. Allow to cool uncovered, then cover again and rest in the refrigerator overnight.
3. The next day, when ready to serve, place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cut the racks in half to make them fit in the pan at least two at a time. Sear until crispy on both sides, approximately 4 to 6 minutes.
4. In the meantime, prepare the yogurt sauce. Whisk 1 tbsp of olive oil into the yogurt. Then the lemon juice and the zest. Stir in mint and salt. Before serving, drizzle sauce with remaining tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with pepper and a pinch of paprika to taste. Whisk one last time before serving in a separate bowl with the lamb.

Monte’s

451 Carroll Street, Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn
$45 each for 3 people, with 2 beers, with tip
718/852.7800
♥ ♥

We needed to eat before the We Were Promised Jetpacks concert at the Bell House but Littleneck was closed and the first thing that came up on my phone that did not sound like a sticky-floor pub was Monte’s. Walking up to the restaurant, I recognized its outdoor garden the first time I visited Littleneck during the day. It was quite empty and I didn’t know if it was because it was a Tuesday night, September 11th, or if it was the Gowanus Canal neighborhood.

Notable:
1. Oysters – The Blue Point oysters were a dollar apiece on a Tuesday night
2. Pasta – The pappardelle pasta almost made me wish it was autumn already. Almost.
3. Backyard – I’m sure it gets busier some other days, but it was quite nice to be sitting outdoors on a quiet evening.
4. Service – Even though the place was empty, our waiter was always around to refill our water glasses and make sure we were doing okay.

Odd:
1. Owner – I almost didn’t notice that we were charged $28 for a dozen of the dollar oysters. When I brought it up to our waiter, he walked up to the older gentleman sitting at the bar, who I assumed is the owner, to let him know. We overheard him say in return, Well, did they notice? I bet he wasn’t going to get off his bar stool to revise our check if we didn’t notice the overcharge.

Jin Ramen

3183 Broadway between Tiemann Place and 125th Street
$20 each for 4 people, with drinks, with tip
646/559.2862
♥ ♥

Ramen in Harlem? This is seriously the best thing that has happened in my neighborhood in the 7+ years I’ve lived there.

Notable:
1. Happy hour $10 Sapporo pitchers after 10pm when I visited on a Monday night

Need I say more? I’ll be making more trips to Jin Ramen this winter for sure.

Salt & Fat

41-16 Queens Boulevard, Sunnyside, Queens
$40 each for 4 people, with drinks, with tip
718/433.3702
♥ ♥

Taking advantage of Queens while one of my favorite eating partners is in town from Chicago, we visited Salt & Fat with her brother to check out the scene in what is a very unfamiliar part of the city to me.

Tastiest:
1. Yellowtail tartare with yuzu gel and cassava chips – We got two orders of this because the combination of yuzu and tartare was very good.
2. Pork belly buns – Comparable to the trendiest of them all
3. Fried chicken – Pretty good and happily-salted fried chicken; I didn’t even need the herbed ranch that came with it. The spattering of pickled cubed daikon was a nice touch.

Pretty good:
1. Oxtail terrine – A little salty for me, but it didn’t seem to be a terrine
2. Pork trotters – Crispy and perfect with the slow-cooked egg
3. Truffled beet salad with yuzu crème fraîche – Simple

Notable:
1. Prices – Go now before the prices hike for visiting Brooklynites (as if they will ever leave Brooklyn!)

Weird:
1. Ice creams for dessert – A-plus for effort on the miso-apple, jalapeño-white peach and Thai iced tea flavors, but I felt like they lacked ooomph.
2. Service – Though pretty fast, our waitress seemed unhappy to be there. We had to ask for our pig trotters twice and we wondered if she was distracted.
3. The bathroom – It looked like Sanibel, Florida in there

Taste Good Malaysian Cuisine

82-18 45th Avenue, Elmhurst, Queens
$20 each for 4 people, without drinks, with tip
718/898.8001
♥ ♥

One of my favorite eating partners was in town from Chicago, so I basically forced her to eat in Queens and drag Paul, her Malaysian friend, with her so he can order for the rest of us and show us Malay food in the city.

Tastiest:
1. Kangkong belacan – Call these hollow vegetables whatever you want: swamp cabbage, water spinach, ong choy or phak bung, but they will always be Filipino kangkong to me. Belacan, the Malaysian variety of shrimp paste is deliciously salty–the perfect side vegetable to any Southeast Asian fare.

2. Rojak – This sweet and sour dish had the best combination of texture: cuttlefish (soft), prawn fritters (crisp), cucumber (tender), jicama (crunchy), pineapple (soft), mango (fleshy), sesame seeds (toasty). Named after the Malay term for “mix”, it not only refers to the seafood-fruit-vegetable combo, but also the multi-ethnic Malaysian-Singapore influence.
3. Singapore kari laksa – How can you go wrong with curry as good as this? This bowl of yellow-orange noodles brought back such good memories of my trip to Singapore I almost wept. It turns out the hot broth that burst from my quickly eating the soft tofu squares were too spicy for me in one go. Burning my throat was worth it though.

Weird:
1. Petai beans with belacan and shrimp – Petai beans look like a larger version of fava, but they had a bitter aftertaste that was, for a lack of a better word, weird. And I rarely describe food as “weird”. After some Internet research, I found out why they would taste so weird: they’re called stink bean and resemble the smell of natural gas!

Disappointment:
1. Sizzling pork with marmite sauce – I was warned that the restaurant is now under new management, but that shouldn’t be a reason as to why they would serve a dish other than how it’s advertised. This dish was in no way sizzling–it was just on a plate that resembled a sizzling platter. The pork chops were soft, but lacked that chargrilled flavor I was looking for and tasted more like a bottle of store-bought sauce was lazily poured in.