Monday, July 15, 2013

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

I made this for work. I got through phrases when I'm a bread fiend :/

Dough: 3c flour, 1/4c sugar, 2 1/4 tsp yeast, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 stick butter, 1/3c milk, 1/4 c water, 2 eeggs, 1 tsp vanilla. Knead and allow to rise for an hour.

Roll out

Filling: 1c sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 stick browned butter. S

Slice into 4ths horizontally

Stack and slice into 6 portions

Layer in loaf pan and let rise for 30-45 minutes. Bake at 350F for 30-35 min until golden brown.

My simplified instructions covered the points adequately, but more detailed instructions can be found here.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Inside-Out Lamb Persillade

I invited a friend over for dinner and finally had the opportunity to use that butterflied leg of lamb from Lamb Jam DC. Man oh man, the meat was wonderful. Supermarket lamb tends to taste gamey, probably because it's been sitting out for awhile. But since the meat was freshly butchered and immediately frozen, it came out incredibly fresh.

I made Inside-Out Lamb Persillade, a recipe from esteemed NY Times food critic Mark Bittman. Persillade is a French sauce which you can think of as similar to pesto, but it uses parsley instead of basil.

Despite how elegant the results turned out, the instructions were surprisingly easy.
  1. Preheat oven to 425F. To make persillade, use a blender or food processor to puree 2 bunches parsley, 1 tsp dried rosemary, 4 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and a drizzle of olive oil (helps blend smoothly, add as needed). 
  2. Smear butterflied leg of lamb with most of persillade mixture all over, then fold in half so that there's some in the middle. Smear remaining persillade on outside of lamb. My lamb was about 1.5 lbs and I baked it for 30-35 minutes for medium rare. 
 So much meat, nom.