The makings for our lamb-day dinner

Here's the gigot d'agneau. In U.S, terms it weighs just over five pounds and cost 62 euros. This is the face cachée — the hidden side. I won't turn it over during the cooking time. Over the weekend, we'll have thin slices of lamb served with boiled potatoes, home-made mayonnaise, and green salad with vinaigrette dressing. I also plan to make a Greek dish called moussaka using the leftover lamb, and also a pot of lamb and barley soup if I have enough meat left.

This is the "public" side. The layer of fat on top will melt and flavor the meat, as well as keep it from drying out. I plan to cook the leg for about seventy-five minutes at high temperature. That's 15 minutes per pound — 500 grams is a French pound (une livre) and is equal to 1.1 U.S. pounds. Finally, I'll turn the oven off and leave the door open slightly to let the meat rest for 30 minutes so that the heat gets evenly distributed through the roast. I want it cooked rare to medium-rare. I guess all that sounds pretty complicated.

For dessert, this morning Walt will make a pie using a sucrine du Berry winter squash. Here's what the sucrine looks like after it has been baked in the oven.

I bought this loaf of pain de campagne at a local boulangerie to have with the lamb dinner. Pain de campagne — country-style bread — is made with 90% wheat flour and 10% rye flour, plus yeast, salt, and water.

We are having local wines with our Thanksgiving dinner. Both are primeur wines — think Beaujolais Nouveau — and both the wineries are just across the river from our hamlet. The red wine is a Touraine Gamay vintage, and the white wine is a Sauvignon Blanc.

As an appetizer or hors-d'œuvre we will have some smoked cod liver (foie de morue fumé) and some moules à l'escabèche on bread or crackers. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article about the vinegar and oil sauce called escabèche.