This month’s POM recipe had an interesting twist from the start. Our local Space Coast newspaper, Florida Today is doing a feature on food blogging and had contacted Christey and me, asking if they could “ride along” on one of our blog posts. The day they called, I had just figured out what I was going to do for my POM post for September, so we arranged a get-together and I cooked up some lamb.

Lamb and pomegranate have a pretty close history in the middle east, where pomegranates are common. On the French side, a bordelaise is a refined red wine sauce that pairs well with hearty meats like lamb. Personally, I think the traditional mint and lamb combination is far too overpowering for a tasty cut of lamb, and I also have an irrational dislike of rosemary. But, fresh thyme is also a common lamb herb (and is one of my favorite herbs in general), and substituting pomegranate juice for red wine in a serious reduction creates a sweet, fruity taste that (I think) makes an interesting contrast to the mint jelly so common in UK or stuffy New York City preparations of lamb. So, I took the concept of a reduced red wine bordelaise and substituted POM 100% pomegranate juice, used fresh thyme and some chives for the herbs, and took a lot of liberty with some traditional lamb concepts.

And, we did all this while Christey and I were being interviewed on camera and video. We’ll link to the final articles when they become available.

We made a pomegranate bordelaise over grilled lamb chops, with a spinach greek salad and pomegranate vinaigrette.

Recipe and step by step inside…

I found some nice lamb loin chops the other day, and I decided to try another bit of regional swapping. I love taking a technique or recipe from one part of the planet, and mixing it up with a completely different part of the planet. I think the foodie word “fusion” leans a little bit to the Asian/Western combination, but that’s sort of what I’m shooting for — combining what works in one culture’s food with what works in another culture’s.

Sometimes, this may be reinventing the wheel. Similar methods of meal creation pop up all over the globe, independently from any cultural link. For example, many cultures have discovered the basics of food fermentation separately, from kimchi in Asia to the preparation of chocolate beans in South America. Other cultures have relied on connections, sometimes roundabout connections, and have adapted ingredients to their own culture — Mexican cuisine uses the Middle-Eastern cumin, and Italy uses the South American tomato.

Therefore, I’m not entirely sure there’s not a Greek equivalent to the Argentinian technique of creating chimichurri sauce — which itself has been described as something of a Patagonian pesto. Heavy on the herbs, with some olive oil, vinegar, some vegetables…generally local stuff blended and chopped together into a chunky, pasty, loose sauce.

In any case, that’s what I thought of when I saw the lamb. A nice marinade for flavor, grilled nicely, then a chimichurri-like sauce with classically Aegean ingredients.

More lamb inside

Lamb is one of those traditional ingredients of spring. These days, world-wide distribution and modern farming methods allow lamb to be available year round (for better or worse), but for many years, lamb was only available in the springtime.

Lamb is a great meat to use with pomegranate juice — it’s often paired with sweet condiments like mint jelly, and the complex pomegranate flavors go well with the earthiness of the meat. For this month’s POM blogger entry, I wanted to use a part of lamb that isn’t as familiar as chops. Lamb shank is economical, and is very tasty. Served pulled over linguine, with vegetables and fresh herbs, and this meal delivers a lot of flavor, but is very easy to cook.

spring on in

This wasn’t exactly a normal dish for us. First of all, I took inspiration from Olive Garden’s Braised Beef & Tortelloni dinner. I don’t normally get inspired by chain restaurants, but this dish is actually pretty interesting. Secondly, unlike Olive Garden’s pre-prepared supply chain, I took pretty much an afternoon and early evening making this. I like doing this from time to time, though. Even though six hours of prep and cooking can be devoured in 15 minutes, it’s fun to build flavors and layer ingredients, basically practicing and expanding techniques. I usually have to do this on a weekend, though, and this was last Sunday’s dinner.

So, I made braised lamb shanks with root vegetables in veal stock and red wine, took a shank and minced it with Parmesan Reggiano, roasted garlic, and fresh oregano, stuffed it in tortelloni, and served it with sliced braised lamb shank meat and crimini mushrooms in a gravy made from the braising liquid.

You know this was good…

I wanted to cook some lamb loin chops tonight, and had some crab left over from the other day, so decided to do a crab dip appetizer for the lamb.

Oddly, there was no stove used in this meal. The lamb was marinated and done on the grill, and the crab was already cooked.

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