Applying My Kitchen Skills...

While I was living in D.C. and Zack was here in Atlanta, Valentine's Day fell in the middle of the work week, so both years I celebrated by cooking dinner (and drinking lots of wine) with my awesome roommate, Becky. Looking back on those dinners, I realize just how far I've come thanks to Le Cordon Bleu (ha-I could be on one of their commercials with that line!) Both of my meals for Becky turned out very well, but I used to cook by adhering strictly to whatever recipe I'd printed from epicurious.com, making sure I had every ingredient it called for and measuring each one precisely. 

This year, when Zack and I cooked Valentine's Day dinner together, I didn't follow any recipes, save for a few notes from school that I checked to remind myself of a couple techniques. I wanted to re-create and improvise upon a couple of dishes I'd made in class and wished Zack had been able to taste. I didn't measure anything all night. With the help of my hard-working sous chef, I pulled off my most ambitious meal yet.

Saturday afternoon, we headed over to Star Provisions, a gourmet market attached to what is considered the best restaurant in Atlanta (same owners). We'd discussed the menu earlier and were planning to splurge on our proteins here: top-grade tuna (for a tuna tartare appetizer) and rack of lamb (for our main course). 

We got everything else at Whole Foods, which was a complete mob scene on Valentine's Day (has it always been like this, or is everyone just staying in to cook thanks to the economy?) Then it was home to start prepping. Having some sort of timeline is a must for executing a big meal like this with several different components. 

I started with the risotto, because it's a time-intensive process and I knew I could just finish it first, move on to everything else and then reheat it, with little more chicken stock stirred in, right before serving. We had a bunch of red and yellow peppers in the fridge already, so I decided to incorporate these into the risotto. I diced the peppers and sauteed them with some garlic separately, then stirred this flavorful mixture into the finished risotto with some grated parmesan cheese.

While I worked on the risotto, Zack chopped rosemary and thyme for the lamb (not his favorite job). Then, after cutting our beautiful 8-bone rack of lamb into two half-racks, he seasoned them thoroughly with salt, pepper, and the herbs he'd just chopped:

Sous chef Zack seasoning the lamb (he's very meticulous)

Then the racks were ready for me to sear in a hot pan. Once browned on all sides, they went onto the roasting pan to rest. During the 40 minutes or so that it took for the lamb to rest and roast in the oven, Zack put together the asparagus. I gave him free reign over this one because he said he kept getting the bad jobs! He halved some fresh tomatoes and put them in the pan with the asparagus spears, topping it all with garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil, then sprinkled the tomatoes with some of the extra chopped herbs--a really nice touch! A little grated parmesan went on top of it all during the last few minutes of cooking in the oven.

Searing the lamb

I made a red wine sauce in the pan the lamb had been seared in. This is something I would have never known how to do pre-culinary school, but all it takes is a couple of chopped shallots, red wine (we used pinot noir and drank the rest of it with dinner), and veal stock (we bought veal glace--a concentrated veal stock--at Star Provisions). I sweated the shallots, then let this all reduce until it produced an extremely flavorful sauce thick enough to coat the back of a spoon--this is the sign that your sauce is ready, called nape in French. 

Once again, the hardest part about cooking lamb for me is taking it out of the oven at just the right time to achieve medium-rare meat. I temped it and took it out a few degrees under 130, then let it rest for 20 minutes. During this time, I put together the tuna tartare from start to finish. The kicker for this dish was the little ramekins that I bought to mold it in, like I had done with the salmon tartare in class. For this version, I decided to add a layer of avocado--both for its creamy flavor that compliments tuna so well and for a beautiful color contrast. 

I diced the tuna carefully and mixed it with minced shallots, thinly sliced scallions, a minced jalapeno pepper, lime juice, a touch of olive oil, and a few drops of hot sauce. I pressed this mixture into the ramekins and topped it with a layer of chopped, seasoned avocado. I was going for all-out restaurant presentation here, so I sliced cucumbers paper thin and arranged them around the plate. We also had sesame crackers on the table for scooping up the tartare.

Plated tuna tartare

The first course was delicious and I enjoyed it thoroughly...but I was still waiting for the moment of truth: slicing the lamb. I worried that it would be a little too rare, and in that case I'd just put the sliced chops in the oven for a minute. No big deal. But when I sliced the chops, once again they were a rosy medium-rare. I think I've got rack of lamb down now, officially. I sliced each rack in half and plated them with some risotto, asparagus, and sauce. Our appetizer may have been dainty (Zack went back to the extra tuna mixture in the fridge for seconds), but this was a huge plate of food! 

Roasted Rack of Lamb with Pinot Noir Sauce, Red-and-Yellow-Pepper Risotto, Parmesan Asparagus: restaurant-worthy description, no?

We could taste how high-quality the lamb from Star Provisions was--but we also patted ourselves on the back for seasoning (Zack) and cooking (me) it so perfectly. Team effort! The risotto was infused with roasted pepper and garlic and was super-creamy, even though I didn't use any cream or even butter. The roasted asparagus and tomatoes were garlicky and full of flavor. After all this, I was so glad we didn't mess with baking anything for dessert. The long-stemmed strawberries that we bought at Whole Foods, along with everyone else in Atlanta, were perfect.