Still not much time to cook due to the last crunch on my next cd with Michael Bisio (title: “Whisk! Don’t Churn”) scheduled to be released on March 12 at Justin’s in Albany where it was recorded live November 20th 2008, remember?
We still had to eat and I must say I like the challenge of having to make something really quick with whatever is available or brought to me. Pierre went shopping; he strolled down to our favorite local store, Aunt Halime’s Halal Meat on 3rd Avenue and Ovinton, and brought back a beautiful rack of lamb, a bag of frozen artichoke bottoms (unusual to find artichokes bottoms, it is usually hearts) and got a nice bottle of Cahors at the local wine store.
We decided that it was too much to make the entire rack for the two of us. I cut out 6 small chops and he took the rest up to Albany. The artichokes bottoms where a great accompaniments to the simply pan fried chops. I was also impressed by their quality; they were firm & flavorful, grown in Egypt and imported via Beirut, Lebanon. Of course I had to go visit the website, and the Alwadi company doesn’t look like a mom and pop’s business, but more like the Goya of Middle Eastern food. Still I can’t complain about the artichoke, au contraire, and they didn’t list any preservatives, which is rare for frozen artichokes. Though I will not use them too often as I am trying to be mindful of my carbon footprint!
This is how I prepared them:
I steamed artichokes for few minutes. I added olive oil & a dollop of butter to the same pan I had fried the lamb chops in, sautéed the bottoms cut an half for few minutes, adding 2 cloves of garlic. Before serving, add chopped parsley. C’est tout!
We shared the bottle of Cahors with the help of my son Joseph who stopped by for a drink and then we returned to our cd designing happy and satisfied!