New Dish! Lamb Carpaccio with Colatura di Alici, Rosemary, and Garlic

Jesse Sutton-

Hi everyone!  First, let me just apologize for no new podcast this week.  Nate and I are both getting really busy, and we just couldn't find the time to cut one.  We'll get back in the groove ASAP!

Instead, I want to show you all a dish I came up with:

Lamb Carpaccio, Rosemary Aioli, Colatura di Alici, and Tiny Croutons

I have a favorite recipe for lamb leg.  You should all try it, it's easy and delicious, and comes together in about an hour.  It relies on the flavor chord of lamb, rosemary, garlic, and anchovy, and it's absolutely delicious.  All you do is this: take a boneless lamb leg and poke it all over with a boning knife.  Then, into each of these holes, poke a 1" sprig of rosemary, a sliver of garlic the thickness of a quarter, and an anchovy filet.  (Wear gloves, it's kind of a gross job.)  If possible, let it sit for about an hour to marinate, but it's not necessary.

Then, salt and pepper it, and throw it into a 450F degree oven for like 10-15 minutes (this will get a nice crust going on the outside).  I use a roasting pan that has a rack built for poultry fit for it, and it works great.  Once the crust has a head start, drop the oven down to about 300F, and let the leg hang out till it hits 120-125F.  It will carry up another 10 degrees, easy.  (Lamb leg has a lot of connective tissue, you don't want to eat it blood-rare, more like uniform pink.)

Then, slice it about finger thick with a long knife, and serve with simple sides.  (Boiled potatoes tossed in olive oil and flaky salt, and some blanched and buttered haricot verts or fava beans would be perfect.)

Great dinner in no time.  I don't remember where I got it, but it's a pretty traditional recipe.

LET'S SERVE IT RAW!!!!

A few months ago, I was thinking about this, and got a wild hair up my ass to make it into a cold app.  I tried it the other night, and it worked great!  Let's go through it, component by component.

The Lamb: Okay, so I said you don't want to serve lamb blood-rare, right?  Well, in this case, I took a sharp boning knife and seamed out all the individual muscles.  I was actually doing this to yield a few tender muscles to roast for the usual suspects (D and our sommelier friend).  I had wanted to just get a loin, but the butcher didn't have any.  I got a leg instead, but that was too much meat for 3 people.  So I seamed it into individual muscles, roasted the 2 fattest, and made all the rest into carpaccio logs.

Wait, what?  Seamed the muscles out?  It's not that hard to do.  All it takes is a sharp knife and the knowledge that you can just saute any pieces that you hacked up while learning, and eat them in a tortilla or something.  Whenever practical, eat your mistakes.  Just cut any gristle you see, follow the natural seams, and watch your fingers.  You'll end up with a bunch of different-sized muscles, and since you've trimmed away all the gristle, you can eat them rare or almost raw (if you slice them thinly).  

How to make carpaccio logs (start this a day ahead):  

Step 1: Pick out your pieces for logs.  This is a great way to use smaller muscles that weren't worthn roasting whole.

Step 2:  Roll them up in plastic wrap.  Use at least a foot or so of wrap per log, or you could have blow-outs.  Twist the ends up to push the logs into perfect cylinder shapes.  Then, tie off one end.  Now, here's the tricky part: tie up the other end, and use those knots to cinch out any slack in your log.  There's a trick to doing this with one knot, but I'll never be able to articulate it.  But you can also take piece of plastic wrap, stretch it into a rope, and use that to cinch the end knots tighter.  The logs should be bouncy and spring back to their shape when poked.

Step 3: Freeze them solid.  Then, remove the plastic wrap.

Step 4: Sear them.  This is the only time I will ever tell you to sear red meat without salting it, but do hit it with a little pepper.  Get a pan rippin' hot, put a tiny amount of oil in it, kill the flame, and drop a few logs in.  Using tongs, sear them on all sides.  Reheat the pan and repeat until all logs are done.  (Why kill the flame?  Because frozen things get frost on them, and frost is water, and water + hot oil = hospital.  Why not sear before freezing?  Because these are little pieces, and if you sear them without freezing, they can cook.  You want seared but raw.  Why sear them at all?  The truth is, you don't need to.  You can eat lamb raw.  However, the sear gives a little textural interest, and also makes sure that any immunocompromised individuals [the elderly, small children, or my wife] can safely eat the meat.

Step 5: Re-roll them (just like before), and refreeze.  (Another unnecessary step, but it guarantees the meat will be in neat little circle slices, which looks nice.)

Step 6:  When ready to serve (and after you've already prepped everything else for the dish), pull the logs from the freezer and clear of any plastic wrap.  Let them temper for 10-15 minutes, and then slice them thinly onto plates you have on hand (make one more order than you need, I'll explain later).  The meat is really delicate, and it's best to plate it while it's still pretty frozen.  Once thinly sliced, it will thaw completely in minutes.  (Restaurants use a deli slicer for this, but I got it done with a sharp knife, I just had to go a little thicker.)

Step 7: Once you have your carpaccios tempering on the place, toss any unused logs (or logs that got too soft to cut) into a container.  Later, saute them and eat them in a tortilla with raw onion and pickled jalapenos.  Or something.

The Tiny Croutons: Freeze a baguette solid.  If you are a fan of big, authentic, open-grained sourdough baguettes, don't use them for this recipe.  Yes, I know they're better.  For tiny croutons, buy crappy frozen LaBrea baguettes.  They have a much more even grain, and are easier to dice.  Grab a sharp knife and cut a frozen block of baguette off the loaf.  Maybe 2" long.  Square it off and cut it into tiny dice (a quart inch, maybe).  Gently move them onto a plate, and keep going till you have enough.  

Then, but about an inch of oil in a pot and get it hot, but not smoking.  Have a metal strainer and a large metal mixing bowl on hand.  Drop the croutons (in one batch, ideally, you don't need more than a cup) into the oil, and don't walk away.  When they are just starting to turn golden, gently drop them (and the oil they are in) into the strainer over the metal bowl.  Be careful.  Then, season them lightly with salt.  (DO NOT cook them until they are a pleasing color.  Fried bread carries up, and they will burn on you.  Then you need to cut more, and that's a drag).

The Rosemary Aioli: Grab a handfull of rosemary.  One of those crappy little clamshells they have in the produce section will do.  Head 2 C extra virgin olive oil (doesn't have to be fancy, Costco is fine) until a piece of rosemary dipped in it will sizzle.  Then, kill the heat and drop in all the rosemary.  It will spit and sizzle, but when it calms down, you will have nice, rosemary-flavored olive oil.

To make the aioli, put a couple cloves of raw garlic through the microplane.  Then, make a 2-yolk mayonnaise with the rosemary oil.  (You can find plenty of internet tutorials for making mayo online, but take note: use the bowl-and-whisk method.  This is such a tiny amount, it probably won't even work in the blender.  Although if you don't know how to be making mayo, this recipe might be a little advanced for you.)  (Also take note: you can coddle the yolks [as if making hollandaise] instead of serving them raw if you have immunocompromised guests, or use pasteurized yolks, they work fine.)  I've found the best way to drizzle the oil in slowly enough is to use a plastic squeeze bottle.  You will have leftover oil, in all likelihood, but it's great in salad dressings.

When the mayo is done, season it to taste with salt and lemon juice.  You can add a little extra microplaned garlic if it needs it.  You want a pretty pronounced garlic flavor, but rosemary should be the dominant note.  But the aioli into a disposable piping bag.

To Finish: By now, your slices should be tempered.  Drizzle each carpaccio with a little olive oil.  (This is where you want to break out the good stuff.  I use Castelas, from Aix-en-Provence, but any bad-ass oil will do.  Or Costco, if you don't have anything cooler, nerd.)  Sprinkle a little chopped shallot (or micro-brunoise red onion) over the carpaccio, but don't go crazy.  Make randomly sized dots of the aioli all over the carpaccio, as well as in the negative space between the carpaccio and the place rim.  (Drizzling is lazy, and stripes are so 90's.  Stripes are over.  Random dots are where it's at.)  

Wait, where's the anchovies? And why no salt?  I'm getting to it.  Anchovies are hard to finesse.  They are really strong.  To get a subtle anchovy flavor, one that wouldn't just stomp the raw lamb, I decided to use Colatura di Alici.  It's basically Italian fish sauce.  Or garum.  It's salted, fermented, anchovy juice.  It's honestly better than it sounds.  Anyway, drizzle each carpaccio liberally* with the colatura, sprinkle some croutons over, and serve.  If your rosemary is young and tender enough (mine was, I got it from D's garden, but the grocery store stuff usually isn't), feel free to add some picked needles.  Make sure to use the littlest ones, or they take right over.

What's with the asterisk?  Colatura is salty.  Like fish sauce, or soy sauce, although more mild than either.  Very, very few cooks are actually used to working with it.  We didn't salt the meat at all, so we could have the maximum amount of colatura on each plate without oversalting the dish.  How much is enough?  It's damn hard to say, and different brands are saltier than others.  This is why I recommended making one more plate than you need.  That way, you can season a little bit of it with what looks to you like a good amount of colatura, and then taste and adjust from there.  I didn't do this, and I went a little light, and the dish suffered for it (first time, and all that).  I ended up having to go around and drizzle a little more on everyone's plates, but it was annoying.  

Bonus: wine pairing:  So I was reading a book by David Rosengarten (at least I think it was him, it's been like 12 years), and he kept advocating for sauvignon blanc with lamb, which is counterintuitive, since lamb is so normally roasted, grilled, or stewed, and red meat cooked that way is almost always a more natural pairing with red wine.  This dish seemed like an ideal one to try out that odd pairing.  It kinda makes sense.  Sauvignon blanc and lamb are both grassy, and oddly herbaceous.  If it weren't for the fact that lamb was so frequently cooked in a way that gave it such a big, bold impact, I guess I could see it working.  So here goes nothing!

I went out and got a really beautiful (and kind of expensive) Sancerre from Domaine Hippolyte Reverdy, $30, and 100% sauvignon blanc, and we had a class.  Then, we poured out the rest of the bottle and tried it with the lamb.  On its own, it was complex, intriguing, and bright.  With the lamb, it was a subtle and effective pairing.  Mind blown.  I tip my hat, David Rosengarten.  Or whoever it was that wrote that book I'm half-remembering.  Well played.

-JS