29 November 2015

Leg of lamb, day 2

When I lived in Paris all those years ago, gigot d'agneau was a more frequent dinnertime food for the people I spent time with. Maybe it was less expensive back then. In the early 1980s, I was lucky to get to know and spend time with two French women — it's a  long story — sisters who were then in their early 80s. They had been born in Auxerre, in northern Burgundy, but had spent most of their childhood and adult years in Paris.


One of them lived in Fontainebleau and I would go spend weekends there with her, her sister, and other family members. The woman who invited us would cook a leg of lamb the way I cooked one on Friday and posted about yesterday. We'd have it for dinner. That same day, for dinner, we'd have cold lamb slices with home-made mayonnaise as you see in the photo below. This was the finest kind of home cooking.


Home-made mayonnaise is so simple to make with a stick blender, un blendeur à main, that it's almost silly to buy mayonnaise in jars at the supermarket. The fresh stuff is so much better, and isn't so sweet (unless you want it to be). One whole egg, 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, 1 teaspoon of vinegar (or lemon juice), 1 cup of vegetable oil (8 fl. oz.), and some salt and pepper. Put everything into the bottom of a tall pitcher or other deep container, stick in the business end of the hand-held blender, and blitz away. It emulsifies almost instantaneously and makes a thick white mayonnaise. Thin and season it with a little more vinegar or lemon juice if you want to. Flavor it with herbs or garlic, or in different ways like the one in this post for different uses: rouille, tartar sauce, thousand-island dressing, and so on.


With our recent lamb lunches (and others), we've been enjying some 2015 Beaujolais Nouveau red wines. Friday's was the one shown above, marketed under the name Pisse-Dru. Dru means heavy and abundant, in describing rainfall, for example. La pluie tombe dru means it's raining hard and heavily. The word has Gallic (Celtic) origins. One explanation for the name of the wine is that it's made from ripe grapes that are so full of juice that it's just squirting out. We both enjoyed this Beaujolais Nouveau more than any of the three or four others we've tried over the past week.


Anyway, there's the lamb, cooked fairly rare and sliced thin. We steamed some little red potatoes to eat with the lamb and, especially, with the mayonnaise. And then we had a big salad of lettuce dressed with vinaigrette (a recipe for the dressing is in this post). Plain and simple food, with good bread and wine.

16 comments:

  1. I agree about homemade mayo. I almost never buy the stuff. Mind you, I made some yesterday and managed to spray it all around the kitchen and all over myself (new badly designed electric whisk which requires one to have three hands for things like mayo). I have taken to adding a dollop of natural yoghurt to my mayo. It is a trick I picked up for making it last longer -- not because there is more, but to stop it growing mould. The yoghurt, so long as you use live yoghurt, cultures the mix and protects it for longer from going off.

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    1. I've never had mayonnaise go moldy. Do you put in some vinegar or lemon juice? That should be enough acidity to keep the mayo from going bad. At the same time, I think salad dressings made with half mayo and half plain yogurt, seasoned and flavored to taste, are really good.

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    2. I suspect you eat more mayo than we do. Mine almost always goes off before we finish a batch. I put about a tsp of sherry vinegar in it, and now the yoghurt.

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    3. LOL, Susan. I make mayonnaise, either with a whole egg and the stick blender, or with just an egg yolk using a whisk or a fork, and then I eat some and keep what's left for a day ot two. It's made with raw egg and you can't expect it to last very long.

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  2. We've drunk Pisse-Dru in the past and liked it....
    we originally bought a couple of bottles before we left the UK...
    the intention being to give one to our friend Drew... and drink the other ourselves.

    Why the Pisse-Dru...
    automatic...
    the label then was entirely PINK...
    and Drew likes a drink...
    so a wine with his name on a pink label!!!
    Drew is the most OUT gay person I have ever met...
    everything had to be pink...
    he grew pink flowers all over his allotment plot...
    he always tried to find veg that had a certain pinkness about them...
    he wore pink wellies and had managed to find a pink set of garden tools!
    Strangely... his garden tools never got nicked!
    He is the allotment's social secretary.... it isn't all about growing veg!
    He sells raffle tickets for the show like a demon...
    and has the same ability to get money...
    out of Yorkshire folk...
    at the after-show vegetable auction for charity.
    Now that I know that Dru means "heavy and abundant"...
    it fits even better...
    Drew is a large, larger than life person!!
    Long may he bring cheer to others!

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  3. Your meat looks very appetising and your photos have helped me to decide to do lamb for Boxing day this Christmas when we will be 4 as we are feeding friends.
    I have never made my own mayo and often wonder while I don't find it for sale in French supermarkets ... only the horrid salad cream. Now I know why - the French make it fresh. I will try that too over Christmas. How many days do you think it will keep for in my quite cold fridge?

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  4. The main problem with keeping mayonnaise for very long in the fridge is that it will be too cold and the oil in the mayonnaise will congeal, causing the mayo to break down. Use grapeseed oil, they say, to avoid that problem. It doesn't congeal at low temperature. I never do that — maybe I consume the mayonnaise too fast for it to break down or get moldy — but I instead use a blend of olive oil (for flavor) and either sunflower or colza/canola oil (for smoothness).

    I don't think they sell "salad cream" in France. Maybe I don't know what salad cream is. In the U.S., we have mayonnaise (Duke's is the best brand) and then something called "salad dressing" (or Miracle Whip) -- a mayonnaise substitute that is cooked (I think). The mayonnaise sold in France is actually mayonnaise, but it's industrial, therefore made with too much sugar and other additives. In the supermarkets here in Saint-Aignan, you can find fresh mayonnaise made by Maille in the refrigerated counters near the crème fraîche and butter.

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  5. Ken, as you say there is plenty of mayo available in France...
    Benedicta is the one we use...
    there is also Bouton d'Or from the Intermarché chain and Maille do one that isn't fresh, also....
    you can even get a squeezy bottle version of the Benedicta one... for your frites!
    However, although never as nice as fresh... they are way better flavoured than Hellemans!

    But Salad Cream... as per Heinz 57... is just not available...
    so it is impossible to make a tuna salad without it tasting too greasy...
    What I haven't tried is mixing some Benedicta mayo with some of their salad dressing...
    that might come closer to Heinz... sorry, thinking out loud there...

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    1. For tuna salad or cole slaw, the dressing solution is one-half mayonnaise and one-half low- or non_fat yogurt.

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    2. Aha... that'd give it the acidity... thanks must try that...
      I was brought up using Heinz... it was "the" ingredient!!

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    3. I like the Amora and other brands of mustard that are made with a good quantity of moutarde de Dijon. They're tangy. Along with the yogurt or instead of it, you can thin bottled mayonnaise with some vinegar to give it the tang.

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    4. We prefer the Bouton d'Or mustard...
      it is stronger and less vinegary than the Amora... which we find quite bland,too...
      but that's probably because Brits are brought up on Colemans Superfine!!
      I will experiment with the mayo and yog/vinnie mixes...
      thanks for the ideas.

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    5. I don't buy Amora mustard either, but that's because the store brands are a lot less expensive and just as hot. I go straight for the Top Budget, Bien Vu, or Netto brands. Amora is much hotter than Maille, but so are the "premier pris" mustards. And yes, I say hot, not bland. I bought some Coleman's mustard at SuperU a few months ago, but I didn't like it. It seems to burn your tongue, whereas the Dijon mustard goes to the back of your mouth and then the burn goes up into your sinuses — "la moutarde vous monte au nez" and it feels like the top of your head might blow off. It's a very pleasant and surprising experience the first time it happens to you.

      The Coleman's mustard I bought had an acidic, thin flavor to me. Maybe it was past its prime. I wonder if you eat it your French mustard while it is still fresh and spicy. Over time, it turns brown and softens in taste. It's still good, but it's not the same thing at all. And it is what I remember having in English restaurants under the name "French mustard" the last time I was over there, which was 20 years ago. Only fresh Dijon mustard makes a good vinaigrette.

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  6. We only eat home made Mayo. Agreed on it being easy to make.
    And now, we added Ketchup, which is basically tomato jam, to that home made department. Equally easy.

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  7. That last photo flew off the screen and onto my table. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

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