I was inspired to make this after flipping through my Bon Appetit magazine. It seemed simple, yet delicious and that’s exactly what it was! If you haven’t yet discovered fennel I really encourage you to give it a try. It is certainly an odd looking vegetable, but once you start working with it, it is pretty straight forward.
Posted in Recipes, Sauces, Seafood
Tagged bon appetit, crispy tilapia fillets, fennel, fennel bulb, fennel fronds, mint, pan fried, tilapia recipe, yogurt sauce
Thanks to my sis we now receive Bon Appetit magazine! This recipe comes from the January 2011 issue. I adapted it in a couple of ways. First, I nixed the pomegranate relish that was supposed to accompany it and secondly, I used chicken thighs instead of making kebobs with breast meat. Â Once it’s grilling season I would love to make this again, this time by making the kebobs. The thighs came out great though too!
Tagged baharat seasoning, bon appetite, chicken, chicken thighs, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, garlic, lemon juice, mint, nutmeg, oregano, recipe, Seared, tahini yogurt sauce, Turkish
If you are a fan of Greek food I am pretty sure you will really like this meal. It is relatively easy to prepare and the flavors are intense and extremely satisfying. We made gyro burgers, which were composed of ground beef and lamb as well as some traditional Greek spices. We also prepared homemade tzatziki sauce and  a Greek salad of tomato, cucumber, red onion and fete cheese. It all went well together and you could also serve the burgers in a pita or flatbread if you so desired.
I will begin with the tzatziki sauce, which is a traditional sauce served with gyros that is made with yogurt and cucumber and is awesome.
The key ingredient here is mint. Luckily mint grows like weeds and we have plenty growing outside!
I just combined all the ingredients and let it chill in the refrigerator while we prepared the rest of the meal. Below is a pic of the final product. Not only is this a great sauce to put on whatever you please, really, but can also be served as a dip with pita or veggies. It is so good.
Along with the burgers we also prepared a Greek salad. I love this salad, especially in the summer when the vegetables are nice and fresh. It is a great accompaniment to any meat, really, and goes particularly well with the strongly flavored lamb.
Now, on to the burgers! I’ll let the pictures do the talking here….
The meat had a gyro like consistency as you can see below (sorry, it’s a bit blurry) and of course the flavor was right on.
Give this one a try!
For valentine’s day dinner we decided to make something we don’t eat often and make something that would be a special treat for us. We went with surf and turf, lobster and lamb.
We got two beautiful lobster tails from Harris Teeter.
We did not want to alter the natural flavor of the lobster and decided to steam them and serve them with melted butter for dipping. Greg put a little Old Bay on his, but my lobster tail went au naturale. Both were steamed in water that was infused with Old Bay and vinegar.
Talk about simplicity! Simple food, done well. The “surf” was a great way to kick things off.
Now on to the turf portion of the meal. We bought two racks of lamb from Whole Foods, that were conveniently frenched already. We have made lamb before, but never rack of lamb. We’ve learned that when making lamb at home it’s important to spend a little extra money and buy a nice cut. The cheaper cuts are grizzly and much more gamey in flavor, not good things. We tried two different recipes, so each rack had a different preparation, set of ingredients, and taste. Both sets were first seasoned with salt and pepper before going on their unique paths.
For the first rack we decided to tap into some Greek flavors, involving mint, lemon, and rosemary.
Greg combineded these ingredients with some olive oil to create a marinade.
Before actually baking this rack, we heated a glass dish in the oven for about half an hour. The rack was placed in the hot dish to sear it. Greg brushed on the marinade and baked it for about 15 minutes or so.
We made the second rack in a more traditional French way, using dijon mustard and bread crumbs.
We began by searing the rack in a pan with a little hot oil.
Once it was seared, we coated it with dijon mustard.
The next step was to cover the rack with bread crumbs (which had been mixed with oil).
Once it was well coated, it went back into the pan for the final leg of cooking. We covered the tips with tin foil so they did not burn.
It cooked for a few more minutes in the pan and then it was ready.
We tried both versions and they were both SO good. Very different from one another and it’s hard to say which one was better!
The bread crumb version is in the back, the lemon/rosemary/mint variety in the front.
This was a delicious meal and I love when we make two (or more) versions of things to try them out and then we also to get to eat a nice variety within the same meal. I really loved them both!
Tagged dinner ideas, French, garlic, Greek, lemon, lobster tail, low carb, mint, rack of lamb, rosemary, seafood
Starving Kitten 