romantic dinner

I'm truly disappointed in how these photos came out, but this meal was just too special for me not to talk about it just because it was kind of a hot mess for the camera. This year, with Nathan back at school, we've kind of scaled back on our big special occasion dinners, and have made fancy meals at home rather than shelling out the big bucks at a restaurant. For Valentine's Day we made this duck breast with orange gastrique, aligot mashed potatoes, braised leeks and then a lightening-fast chocolate mousse for dessert.

cumin lamb stir fry/melted leeks

Sometimes it's good to make something a little different, and when you work until 6:00, it's good if that something different is also something EASY. That's where Mark Bittman comes in, with his seemingly endless supply of fast, cheap, tasty meals from all across the globe.

Nathan picked out this particular dish from Bittman's last Bitten column, in which the writer had compiled a list of his 25 favorite recipes published over the years. It's a damn good reference and I really should look to it more when trying to decide what to make.



I don't do a lot of stir frying, so that made this Asian inspired lamb dish a bit of a departure for me from the start. When I cook meat, it's more often than not on the bone, or cut into large steaks or filets. Here, the lamb shoulder is cut into cubes, which is a great way to cut down on cooking time in the evening.

So far so good, for sure, but fairly boring I'll admit. What makes this dish exciting is the bold flavors that come from toasted cumin seeds, scallions, cilantro and red chili pepper flakes. The lamb should marinate with the cumin and red pepper, garlic and soy sauce before being cooked briefly over high heat with the scallions. It tastes great over rice and is ready in minutes.



I served it with some leeks that I tried to caramelize. They were good, but Bittman's lamb was certainly the star.

leeks vinaigrette

leeks vinaigrette

When I went out to Bellport on Labor Day there was a lot of food that I still couldn't eat. Juicy grilled steak was out of the picture, as was most other meat. One of the things I could eat, however, was melted leeks with onions. I don't know what Helen did to them, but the end result was a sweet, mellow leek relish that was so delicious I had to restrain myself from taking far more than my share. As long as I had a pile of leeks on my plate, I wasn't missing that meat.

Not long after that, I saw this recipe on orangette and it called out to me. I needed some leek goodness and I needed it now. As luck would have it, they were on sale in a bunch of three down at the Wild Olive Market at 125th street, so I snapped them up. (Fancy stuff like leeks doesn't often make it above 96th street.)


leeks with hard boiled eggs

Aside from cleaning the leeks, which is a surprisingly time consuming process, and struggling to fit the long leeks in the pot to boil them, this was a cinch to make. You simply boil the leeks until they are tender and falling apart, which takes about ten minutes, and then drain them, squeezing out excess water. Then you serve them with a vinaigrette of minced shallots, mustard, olive oil and white vinegar. I used a nice grainy mustard in the dressing and served those babies with a couple hard boiled eggs.

It was surprisingly rich and decadent for such a simple dish. Nathan and I both loved the soft, tender leeks and the tangy dressing. It's not often that he is willing to put a vegetable center stage as the main course, but this dish was a major exception. He was very impressed, and so was I. These are delicious!