365DOP: Espresso-Spiked Lamb Loins and Tarte au Citron

Cross-posted from 365 Days of Peta.

On Monday morning I woke around eightish and read Fête Accomplie (1990), Peta's first book. This is probably my favourite book thus far - it mostly covers Peta's apprenticeships and experiences in various restaurants in Paris, and her life during a year spent working on a luxury barge in Burgundy. There are also lots of recipes that made me feel all EXCITED and INSPIRED, including one for Tarte au Citron (p. 117) which spurred me to leap out of bed and elevenish and ride my bicycle down to Moore Wilsons and pick up ingredients.

I had heaps of pictures, but my camera is terrible and has corrupted all the images. Out of the entire meal, I have only managed to get a photo of half of the tart. Everything else was eaten before I realised that the photos were ruined, which bodes well for the meal but not for any kind of future I might have planned as a food blogger. The only upside is that they were pretty crappy photographs to begin with and will give me yet another impetus to improve the photograph situation this end, and to flex my food-descriptive muscles.

THUS: My main course was Espresso-Spiked Lamb Loins from Don't Get Saucy with me Béarnaise (1996), p. 72-73. The recipe owes a lot to the dark period of New Zealand cooking that was dominated by fusion cuisine. Call me a traditionalist, but I strongly believe that most fusion cuisine just isn't as good as food that is consistent and that matches properly.*

In saying that, I have always been a huge fan of cooking lamb with coffee (we have an old family recipe for lamb roasted in coffee), and the lamb itself, the cut and the way that it was cooked, was quite delish. I'm not at all sure about the two side dishes that were suggested: cucumber marinated in ginger, sugar and rice vinegar; and a tomato sauce. In hindsight, I think I should have just read the recipe and made my own decisions about the what best to serve the lamb with - probably some kind of reduced sauce using the marinade, and maybe some spinach or green beans? I replaced the foccacia suggested in the recipe with boiled and buttered Jersey Bennes (new season potatoes) and they were lovely and covered my aim of eating seasonally. People of New Zealand, eat your Jersey Bennes while you still can!

The tart recipe was fairly straightforward and the result super delicious. I am so stoked with how well it turned out and I will certainly be making it again. Approval from Flatmate, little Brother and Boy. The tart crust was lovely and crisp and the filling nicely set without being too-too firm. In future I might cook it ever so slightly less so that the filling is a little softer.

IN CONCLUSION: The lamb recipe was great, and I'll repeat but with different sides (the cucumber thing was a little too odd for my tastes).  Tarte au Citron is now added to my arsenal of impressing-seeming desserts, but I think that dusting it with icing sugar looks a little tacky so will be laying off that in future. Second day living a la Peta is a success!

ALSO: this is what Peta has been eating, according to Facebook. I am inspired and I also happen to have a butterfish that the Boy speared today that is just begging to be smoked. Pity the strawberry patch is deeply affected by the freezing weather and that we have no homegrown potatoes since we gorged ourselves on the ones from the Boy's grandad's garden.

*Coconut pannacotta is the exception that proves the rule here.