Looking forward to a great start for the holiday season, a couple of friends their new baby, my wife and our new baby got together to celebrate their first two months of their lives. A great ocassion specially since we have been friends since our arrival to Cabo and that´s already 6 years ago!
It was very casual, then agian, after the baby was born, everything has been casual, with barely enough time to get semi dressed before friends or vsists come over to the house. Even though it was quite simple, dinner turned out to be quite enjoyable, which again makes true of my year old saying, sometimes the simplest things tend to be the best!
Let´s see. The menu; roasted leg of lamb with a cumin and saffron crust, mixed salad and as our side dish, couscous. Two of us had beers, both girls had wine and the babies had their formula to look forward to. As in all good meals, the food is always complemented by the good company and great conversation.
The boneless leg was quite the size for only four people. The fun part about this one was not necesarilly the preparation, but the "on location" cooking of it. On our way to our friends house we stopped by to buy it, having only prepared the vegetables for roasting the leg and a quickly made seasoning mix to rub into the leg. The one that paid the price was the car. We had the usual vegetables for roasting, yellow onions, carrots, celery, par cooked potaotes, salt and pepper. After the 30 minute trip, the car smelled like an onion factory!
The rub was something simple that usually helps the lamb with its flavor profile; saffron, cumin, black pepper and a little cayenne. It turned out pretty good for something that I wasn´t really planing on doing. The lucky part about the dinner was not adding rosemary to the mix. I personally love rosemary on lamb, but since I wanted to chop it fresh, I left it for a last minute thing to do. As it turned out, our host did not like rosemary!!! Man... that would been it!!!!
Once we got there I started thinking about those TV shows that have a chef go to someones house to make dinner. A lot of unexpected things can happen and do happen specially the fact that most houses don´t have any equipment that you might find at a chefs house! Thankfully everything worked out ok, except for the temperature dial of the oven which at 350 seemed more like a bread warmer. As a past instructor would say, gotta adapt, persevere and overcome, and so, turning the dial at 450 finally did the trick, though an hour later, uppss!!! We were pretty hungry by then!
I really believe all of us ended up pretty stuffed, leaving only 1/3 of the leg of lamb for leftovers. The cous cous was also pretty good, and acutally left me very impressed in the way that our host prepared it. It seemed only to have been cooked in chicken stock, seasoned and finished with some shredded carrots. I´ve had my share of cous cous in the past, but this one in particular struck me mostly because of the simplicity of the preparation and how well it complemented the main dish.
Most professionals know that good couscous should not clump together and be moist without any excess liquid whatsoever. This one hit every mark. Funny enough most professionals, including this new convert, over exaggerate on the cous cous, adding all kinds of stuff to it to make it taste more complex. You´ll add vegetables, sundried tomatoes, everything but the kitchen sink. Well, this one was so good, I´ll confess to have asked to taken some home!
Dinner was done and finally the true people in charge, meaning both babies, decided the party was over. It was time to go home. Once again, another authentic happy meal!
Next week, you´ll be seeing on our recipe of the month page the exact way that the lamb was cooked. Be sure to check it out and keep abreast of all our upcoming stories. We hope you have as much fun reading about them as we do enjoying dinner!
