Second Course of the Fourth of July Cook-In

[crafty_packrat]

ellen_fremedon and I wisely got together on Saturday and figured out our meal plan for today, so we could get the best ingredients and split cost.

Of course, we chose Jidi Bel Zet -- Veal Shanks with Saffron and Seven Spice -- before realizing that first, no one was selling veal shanks, and second, the goat shanks (the recipe is adapted from a recipe for goat) were two-and-a-half-dollars more per pound than osso bucco from the bison ranch. Otoh, there was no guarantee that the bison people had osso bucco availabe either, but their saleswoman promised she'd be able to sell us stew meat and a marrowbone if the osso bucco wasn't available. Which was why I bought a marrowbone on Sunday.

The first thing we had to do this morning was make Baharat -- the blend of sweet paprika, cumin, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, hot paprika, and coriander -- which is the titular Seven Spice. Hand grinding 4 tsps of black pepper is a chore, especially with a mini-grinder, and I finally resorted to cracking the black pepper with my mortar and pestle. After dredging and browning the meat, we stuffed it in the oven and worked on prep work for other dishes, with just a timer to keep us going.

Cooking the shallots, garlic and saffron in one skillet and the sweet potatoes in another, and then dumping them all back in the dutch oven to cook on the stove top worked well. Once they were cooked through, ellen_fremedon showed me how to get the marrow out of a marrowbone with a butter knife, and put the blood and juices she saved when we opened the meat packages to enrich the dish. Adding a half a lemon's worth of juice, we set back and let the whole thing rest.

Instead of serving with saffron rice, we just ate it with the pita bread left from the first course...



It doesn't look like much in the pot, but trust me, it smelled wonderful and tasted fabulous.

Comments

[laughingrat]

It sounds really fabulous. LOL at your meat story. Why does cooking have to be so complicated?

Do you grind whole spices fairly often? I ask because it's something I wind up doing a few times a month, so my cheapy coffee-grinder has been a really good investment. Probably around $20-$30 these days, and of course I use it only for spices. :) The mortar and pestle just didn't cut it, but I probably have bad technique.

[crafty_packrat]

When meat is in the $7+/lb range, you do start looking for bargains pretty fiercely. That said, Gunpowder Bison has truly excellent meat, some of the best I've ever had.

I had a wonderful pepper-grinder that just recently gave up the ghost, and my emergency back-up grinder is tiny -- a mini-magnetic pepperball which just wasn't up to grinding 4 tsps at once.