Christmas Feast '12 of Apricot Ginger Glazed Lamb, Asparagus with Classic Hollandaise Sauce, and Smoked Salmon Chowder

My laptop has finally returned to me after a tumultuous two weeks at the Apple repair, and it is now glistening new with a clean screen and a fresh fan. I'm a little worse for wear, but I need to finish at least one or two blog posts before school starts - so let's do this thing.

This thing which is intensely large post that is going to consist of three recipes and a whole lot of pictures.

Why. Why do I do this to myself?

For Christmas this year (last year!), my mother and I split up the menu - as we usually do - into my Western and her Taiwanese. We both settled on only doing three dishes or so to avoid a huge amount of leftovers. Elliot and I also bought a huge pumpkin pie at Costco earlier that day, and since there were only going to be 7 people eating, I settled on making two dishes and a soup.

The two dishes I made were a whole rack of lamb, jazzed up with an apricot ginger glaze to fit the holiday season, and classic hand-whipped hollandaise sauce to accompany some beautiful asparagus. The soup I made was a smoked salmon chowder, and don't crucify me but I used Campbell's cream of mushroom soup to whack up the texture a bit.

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[Apricot Ginger Glazed Rack of Lamb]

Ingredients
Lamb:
• 1 rack of lamb (about 7 or 8 ribs, 1 or 2 per person)
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 sprig of fresh rosemary, roughly chopped, or substitute 1 Tbsp dried rosemary
• A healthy handful of salt and pepper
• A good drizzle of olive oil

Glaze:
• The garlic and rosemary scraped off from the meat (I'll explain in a bit)
• 2 Tbsp of apricot preserve
• 1 sprig young ginger, halved
• 1/2 cup water

The first step is to marinate the lamb.

Rub down the lamb on both sides with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and rosemary. Let it sit for an hour or so in the fridge, but remember to let everything come back down to room temperature before cooking, about half an hour to an hour. If you want to leave the meat out when you marinate just make sure the kitchen isn't festeringly hot, and that you cover the meat with saran wrap or something.

Wow so you know how I made that Facebook status about waxing poetic because of Anna Karenina? Well obviously that's not working - Leo Tolstoy's literary genius and Joe Wright's directing marvel has just made me realize I'll never be as good so I might as well stop trying.

Anyways.

There's the lamb marinating, along with the waiting pile asparagus, who is very excited to be joined with the Hollandaise sauce later on. I can relate.

Once the lamb is done marinating, get out the ingredients for the glaze, and heat up a frying pan until it is hot. Not blazing hot, mind you, the sugar in the jam could caramelize a little too quickly if the heat is too high. Throw in a bit of olive oil, and place the ginger in, cut side down. Then, scrape the garlic and rosemary off from the lamb and throw it into the pan.

I have no idea if that's completely wrong of me to do or what, but it came out delicious. Also, GIFs are the thing of the future. When I actually have time I will properly learn how to make one, instead of throwing it on a website and having it come out all grainy as above. Still pretty cool though.

Once everything's browned a little, whiz in the jam.

I used Bon Maman apricot reserve, simply because Bon Maman is one of my favorite brands for jam, and also because I just happened to have a jar of it sitting in the fridge. But I mean who doesn't love apricot jam? And good mothers? I mean just look at that darling checkered pattern on the lid.

It's so homey and lovable.

So I know I've asked you guys to put in two tablespoons, and it is quite obvious here that I am using a fork instead of a spoon, and I must ask you guys to simply disregard it or embrace it. Love me or leave me. Vronsky would take me as I am, craziness and all. Tablespoons, tableforks. Who cares.

Remove the ginger from the mix at this point, just so the flavor is in there enough, but it doesn't become overwhelming. Then pour in the 1/2 cup of water and let everything simmer down a little until it has become - for lack of better word - gloopy.

Preheat the oven - or in this case, toaster oven - to 325 degrees fahrenheit (165 degrees celsius) and whack the lamb in once everything is hot enough. Let the lamb roast for about 12 minutes before you whack on the glaze, otherwise the glaze will just burn and charr under the heat. Honestly it's not really that big of a deal though.

It's also recommended to wrap the exposed bone of the lamb in tin foil to avoid the bone from burning, but I was already pretty drunk at this point so I just plump forgot.

Let the lamb sit in there for another 5-7 minutes if you want medium/medium-rare, or another 10 minutes or so if you want it well. We like it pretty bloody, Elliot and I, but my mother is a little shiftier about eating rare meats, so we put it in there for about 19 minutes.

It's all about compromise in our household.

Carve up the lamb by each rib, and serve!

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[Asparagus with Classic Hollandaise Sauce]

Ingredients
Sauce:
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 shallot, finely minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 10 peppercorns, preferably whole, but 1/4 Tbsp. ground pepper would work too.
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 stick of butter, melted

Hardware:
• Double boiler, or a small pot with a handle and a larger pot
• A whisk
• A strainer/colander

Asparagus:
• 1 bunch of asparagus, 2 or 3 spears per person

Hollandaise sauce. It's something that pretty much everyone enjoys but almost nobody ever makes at home. I'm pretty sure, however, that absolutely nobody makes it at home by hand. Unless you're like a 3-star chef who has plenty of a free time and a date to impress.

This really is an insanely arduous process, and if you want, feel free to do the blender version.

The classic, handmade version - which I found thanks to Michael Ruhman - starts simply with one, small shallot. Take this small shallot and finely mince it.

Once you've finely minced the shallot, crumble up a bay leaf and set it aside along with the peppercorns. For a choice of vinegar, Michael Ruhman suggested any sort of "nice" vinegar, but didn't specify what kind, so - if I may be so bold - I hereby further recommend using rice vinegar. I could be a little biased because I'm Asian and rice vinegar is the go-to for basically any sort of cooking around these parts unless balsamic or dark vinegar is required.

Then again, I'm no professional, and my recommendations are merely guidelines that you are more than welcome to disregard. Much like the rest of this blog.

Separate three eggs, and keep the yolk in a large enough bowl in which you can add more liquids and whisk comfortably. We managed not to waste the egg whites by making hand-whipped whipped cream for our pumpkin pie, but BOY are we never doing that again. And I thought making handmade pesto was difficult.

Whip the yolks so that they are smooth, but not more. Trust me, you're gonna need those arm muscles later. Set it aside and mentally prepare yourself to face some demons. Maybe do a few stretches first.

Heat up a frying pan, add in a dash of olive oil, then throw in the lemon juice, shallots, peppercorn, crumbled bay leaf and let it all brown it a little bit. Then throw in the vinegar.

Fair warning: this will be very pungent.

Make sure you have a good amount of fresh, flowing air to avoid being stifled.

Let this mixture reduce down, while trying to breathe normally, and then add 1/4 cup of water to it.

I messed up the first batch and accidentally added an entire cup of water, and very frustratedly had to start everything over again. Thank heavens for my saint of a boyfriend who patiently stood by me the whole time and fed me beer and encouragements so I had the strength to carry on.

Once this concoction has been whipped up, strain out the veg bits, and - once the liquid is cool enough - stir it into the beaten egg mixture. This next bit is strenuous, but very interesting. We have to "cook" the eggs.

You'll need a double-boiler, or a large pot or pan and a small saucepan, as the picture below so delicately demonstrates. Also take note of the lady-like manner by which I am holding the whisk. It is all a ruse, I tell you. I am never that delicate, I was just posing for the camera.

OR WAS I?

Fill the large pot (or pan) with water, and heat it up over the stove. Once the water is gently bubbling away, lower the saucepan - now miraculously filled with the egg and vinegar concoction mixture - into the water. This is also a method very useful for melting chocolate, in case you thought this looked familiar.

Gently, but firmly, whisk the mixture repeatedly until it has started to cook. The texture will begin to thicken and eventually look like a very delicious cheese sauce. You'll know when things are ready when the sauce has started to show the whisk trail, as below. Feel free to continue on for a little longer, but it IS possible to overcook the eggs, so stop whenever you see fit.

This next step is sinful.

Microwave butter until it is all melted and your kitchen smells like a heart attack. 

Once all the butter is melted, slowly pour the butter into the cooked egg/vinegar mixture in streams at a time. I employed the steady hands of Elliot at this point, so he was unable to photograph this process. Rest assured that it was very stressful and very repetitive.

The sauce can "break" or "separate" in this process, and the surface will become irreparably choppy. Thanks to Mr. Ruhman's useful tip, apparently all you have to do is throw in a sprinkling of cold water and then mix it in again. I was lucky enough that my sauce did not break, and I owe it all to beginner's luck.

And my boyfriend.

I think you all know how to prepare and blanch asparagus.

What I did for serving was simply plate the asparagus and serve the sauce separately in a deep bowl. It also makes for fun finger food when people can just dip in the asparagus and crunch away.

The sauce can be put into the fridge, and simply add water and mix it through again when you want to take it out to use it. Elliot and I used the leftover to have some smoked salmon eggs benedict the next day, and it worked like a charm.

All the shallot and vinegar flavors did seem to triple overnight in the fridge, however, so just be warned that if you have a very important business meeting soon after breakfast, I will not take responsibility for your unappealing breath.
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[Smoked Salmon Chowder]

Ingredients
• 8 oz. smoked salmon, about a small grocery store packet's worth, chopped up
• 1/2 yellow or white onion, diced
• 2 strips of bacon, diced
• 1 carrot, peeled and diced
• 1 green onion, finely julienned
• 1 potato, peeled and diced
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1 cup of whole milk
• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 sprig cilantro, diced, for garnish

Last recipe!

Gah I am so close to done, and I could just give up but I love doing this and I love all of you. So for the sake of food and love and love of food, I will see this through.

Chop up all your ingredients except for the bay leaf. Leave that whole so it can easily be extracted at a later point. Feel free to leave the carrot as is, with the skin on and everything, but just make sure that it is scrubbed clean.

It's rustic.

Heat up a crock pot, and throw in a half knob of butter, just to get things going. Once that's melted, throw in all the bacon and toss things around until the bacon gets browned and crispy. There should also be a good amount of bacon grease in there at this point.

This is good. Very good. For the soup.

But it's not good for your thighs and your cholesterol level. Not good.

Once the bacon is all crisped and browned, throw in all the rest of the veg along with the bay leaf and saute everything until it is all coated in bacon grease and letting out the most beautiful scent that is a potpourri of meats and sin and gloriousness and sauteed onions and hope.

I know the green onions may seem like an unnecessary step, but it does add a great deal of sweetness to the mix that regular onions cannot contribute. Feel free to substitute for large dices of leek as well. Chowders are kind of a free-for-all.

Once the veg is browned and softened and such, dump in the wine and the chicken stock. Unsalted chicken stock is preferred, but you can use salted as well, just remember to adjust the salt seasoning later. Also feel free to use a vegetable stock for the vegetarian option.

If you're a vegetarian that's okay with eating bacon and smoked salmon.

Okay I'm clearly not vegetarian friendly but that's not because I'm discriminatory it's because I'm passionate. Everyone is equal in my eyes. And susceptible to my judgement...

Also, feel free to not drink wine directly from the bottle and transform yourself into the living epitomization of grace because that's just rude. Also feel free not to spill the wine everywhere as you're pouring it in and accidentally flambeing the entire medley.

But do it if you're an exciting person because setting controlled fires is acceptable and encouraged in certain settings.

Don't do this at home, kids.

Pour in the milk, and stir things up a little and grimace slightly at how much bacon grease is floating on top of the mixture. Thanks to lack of emulsion in soup, you get to see just exactly how much fat you're ingesting into your system.

At least at this point it's visible. Everything becomes a lot more visually friendly once you pour in chowder's best friend.

That's right, I'm using canned soup.

Throw in the soup along with 2/3 of the smoked salmon bits, and just let it stew. I let it simmer for about 30 minutes before just letting it sit for the rest of the day. Heating it back up before dinner took only about 15 minutes including the finishing touches. Basically the only gauge is that the potatoes are soft enough to chew through.

Fish around the soup until you find the bay leaf, fish it out, throw it away, and then add in the rest of the smoked salmon and some cilantro. Season according to taste and serve!

Merry belated Christmas everyone. Now that school's about to start I will be returning to New York, so I will likely be wracked with bouts of inconsolable sadness which will hinder my writing more blog posts.

But I promise there are more coming.

Until next time.