What do lamb, butter, soy sauce, garlic and blue cheese have in common? Nothing, except that when you throw them all on the grill together (after some marinating) it's ridiculously, preposterously good! This dish has been nicknamed "Crack Lamb" and I'm tending to agree. What looked like an insurmountably large leg of lamb for five people was demolished before I had the chance to take a decent picture...
I'll post the recipe below- but the concept is as follows- the leg of lamb is butterflied and marinated in the garlic, soy, red wine (always a good idea in this writer's book) and olive oil, then grilled- then literally slathered with butter and blue cheese mixture and broiled to finish... the lamb was tender, amazingly flavored and melt in your mouth cooked to perfection...with some simply grilled zucchini and broccolini and a quinoa salad...the perfect backyard dinner.
Dinner started with a delightful surprise from our hosts:
2004 Domaine Laurens "Clos des Demoiselles" Cremant de Limoux ($20 +/-) A surprisingly bright, dry and elegant way to start the evening. Crisp and floral with vibrant acidity. A perfect apertif!!! (I'll be finding some of this for the house)
89 points.
Not knowing what to bring to dinner, I fell back on the standard pairing for lamb; Chateauneuf du Pape.
In this case, the always spot-on 1999 Le Vieux Donjon Chateauneuf du Pape. Showed marvelously with layers of bright kirsch and dusty berry fruit, elegantly developed garrigue and spice. Medium bodied and elegant on the palate with bright acidity and well developed tannin and a minute plus finish with hints of cedar and smoke. This was great with the lamb itself, but the blue cheese overpowered it just a bit. $35 at retail (current release is most likely a bit more)
92 points
The hosts also provided two zins for the main course:
The utterly black colored and super extracted 2002 Biale "Black Chicken" Napa Zinfandel...I tend to like softer zins with good acidity, but this might be my favorite zin on planet earth. Helena and Key broke this out after a discussion about zins a few weeks ago (thanks guys). Exuberant and expressive with loads of bombastic fruit and spice. Starting to come together after a few years in bottle, this showed more refinement and elegance than my last tasting. Seamlessly textured and focused on the palate, with broad and rich mouthfeel. Chock full of mixed berry fruit and hints of black pepper, cocoa, toffee and black licorice. It was bordering on perfect with the lamb/bluecheese combo... 94 points
A more subdued, classic style zin was the 1999 Limerick Lane "Collins Vineyard" Russian River Valley Zinfandel. This has developed nicely in the bottle, taking on some claret-like hints of tobacco and cedar on the nose along with softer red fruits. On the palate the wine is starting to develop nicely with velvety textured tannins and great balancing acidity. I was reminded of something almost like a fruitier version of a mature rioja. Much like the Vieux Donjon, this was delightful with the lamb itself, but was slightly overpowered by the intensity of the blue cheese. Current vintage is $26 from the winery.
91 points
After a few nips from their prodigious scotch collection and a hotly contested "battle-of-the-sexes" game of Cranium, we all enjoyed a rather un-athletic, netless version of backyard barbeque badminton (to work off the lamb), that is until yours truly launched the last of the birdie things onto the roof (Key gets points for bravery for retrieving)...
next one's at our place guys- Thanks again...
TRC
P.S. The Recipe for the lamb if anyone wants to duplicate (I highly recommend it...)
"Crack Lamb" courtesy of Helena Chaye and Key Shin
butterflied leg of lamb
Marinade:
garlic (2-3 cloves)
brown sugar (2 tbsp)
olive oil (1/2c)
red wine (1/2 c - I used more)
soy sauce (I use light low sodium) (1/2c - I used slightly less)
2 tsp ginger powder
- marinate for 48 hours
- grill
Cheese mix:
butter (4oz - but I used half of that)
blue cheese (4 oz)
lemon juice (1 lemon)
green onions (4)
- smother with the mix and then put it under broiler for 2-4 minutes until the mixture bubbles
Sante-
TRC
3 comments:
Thank you for such an eloquent description of our evening together - as always, a wonderful time was had by all. The lamb recipe came from my good friend Kristin in DC who seems to have a great eye for identifying fabulous recipes (and shoes). It was she who coined the term "crack lamb". The credit and thanks must be extended to Kristin for first believing the blue cheese and soy would go together, and then for making it for me on my visit.
I forgot to list 2 tsp of ginger powder to the marinade recipe...
I agree! The gourmet BBQ was fantastic, and my new boyfriend (Curtis Stone) would have been elated!
BTW...I am the other person at the BBQ, who was not graced in ANY of the pictures...you can consider me the photographer.
Great food, great wine, great people. Thanks to all!
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