Between work and a bit of traveling, we haven’t posted in a while. We have a few posts lined up though, including a couple give-aways, so check in throughout the next few days!

We have a pretty beat-up gas grill on our porch. The grate in it had been looking pretty bad, and I couldn’t find a replacement locally. I did find a supplier on the Internet, and within two business days, I had a new grate for my grill…one size too large. It still fits, but it sorta projects out the front of the grill and slants a little bit. I probably can’t grill sausages on it, but I figured it would work for my first attempt to grill pizza.

For our honeymoon three years ago, Christey and I went to Paris, Rome, and Venice. We loved the thin, personal pizzas of Italy, the thin crust and variety of different ingredients. I made homemade pizza dough and whipped up a tomato sauce. Christey and I formed our own pizzas (hers: thinly sliced mushroom, pepperoni and feta, mine: mushroom and sardine) and I grilled them on our new, somewhat slanted grill.

pizza pizza

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

On the 14th of June, 1800, in the Northern Italian town of Marengo, Napoleon’s troops were hit with a surprise attack from the Austrian forces, commanded by General Michael von Melas. Napoleon figured the Austrians were retreating from Italy, and spread his army widely to try to cut them off. Instead, von Melas attacked directly, with a much larger force. Napoleon was forced to fall back. Some of the French outliers were able to reach and join up with Napoleon’s main force, and a counter-attack by the French regained the battleground and scattered the Austrian army, thus winning the Battle of Marengo. By the next day, the Austrians negotiated a retreat from Northern Italy.

Hungry after the long day (over 12 hours of combat), Napoleon commanded his chef to make something in a hurry. The chef was forced to scrounge the countryside and found herbs, chicken, tomatoes, garlic, wine, olives, and appropriated some of Napoleon’s personal stash of cognac. With these foraged ingredients, the chef whipped up a meal so tasty, Napoleon considered it his “lucky meal” and requested it before many future battles.

So goes the legend of Chicken Marengo. Though Napoleon ordered that the dish never be altered, many have done so over the last couple centuries. My basic “source” recipe came from The Joy of Cooking, and I’ve gone back and forth over several years altering and changing the recipe, from making almost a casserole version, to a more traditional approach. This version leans toward traditional.

March on in…