Easter Lamb

Easter’s Jewish and Christian celebrations often include lamb for reasons more historical than gustative. When Moïse sought to liberate its people from the Pharaoh, God inflicted the ten plagues upon Egypt. The last and decisive one struck the first born of men and beasts. During the first Passover, Jewish families kept captive sacrificed a new born lamb to mark with its blood their front door: the Angel of Death would then pass it by. Christianity borrowing from Judaic tradition designated Christ in the Liturgy as the sacrificial lamb. Traditionally of course spring is also the time when fresh new lamb comes to the market, although nowadays globalization has made season irrelevant. It is one of the few remaining grass-fed meat in the United States and therefore a good source of omega-3. It makes for a festive dish to feed a crowd with almost no pain. And the next day the leftover can be dressed with the same mint sauce and a green salad for an easy lunch. To conclude the meal and celebrate the anticipated riches of the season, a moist and flourless chocolate cake is called for. For a starter, I suggest to pass around blinis, the Russian version of a savory pancake, garnished with cream, salmon roe and smoked salmon.
Ideally the leg of lamb should cater to every guest’s taste in doneness, from rare to well done, with all the nuances in between, not to forget an enticingly crisp skin all around. To achieve this goal you need to start the roast in a hot oven for a quarter of an hour and count about 12 to 15 minutes cooking time per pound of meat. The lamb is perfumed by inserting salted anchovies in slits inside the meat and rubbing olive oil, thyme, rosemary and coarse black pepper on top. To save time, it cooks on top of sliced potatoes, which will be perfectly crisp by the time the roast is ready. The sauce is inspired by the mint British love to serve with lamb.

Blinis (Easy, Preparation time: two hours largely unattended, Cheap)

Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
1cup milk
11/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 eggs separated
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch of sugar
¾ stick melted unsalted butter
Additional butter for cooking

Material:
1 blender
1 eggbeater
1 rubber spatula
¼ cup
1 frying pan
1 spatula

Proof the yeast in warm water according to the package instructions.
Mix all the ingredients in the blender except for the whites.
Pour the batter into a bowl large enough to accommodate the rising. Reserve under a cloth on a warm place for 1 hour and a half.
At cooking time, beat the egg whites and fold them into the batter.
Set the frying pan on a medium flame and add a little butter. Form little mounds about 3 inches in diameter on the pan, using the ¼ cup. When the batter starts bubbling, turn them over.

Oven-baked leg of lamb on a potato bed (Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 2 hours, Expensive)

Ingredients:
8 lbs (3.5 to 4 kg) leg of lamb, bone-in
Can of anchovies
2 Sprigs of Rosemary
1 teaspoon coarse pepper
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1tablespoon olive oil
8 large baking potatoes
2 heads of garlic

Sauce:
2 cups tightly packed mint leaves
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
½ cup olive oil
1 garlic clove minced
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Material:
Food processor
Roasting pan
Paring knife and board
Colander
Kitchen towel
Aluminum foil

Preheat the oven to 425F (318C) with the roasting rack on.
Pierce the leg of lamb with a sharp knife and insert in the opening a half anchovy and a rosemary leave. Repeat the operation in 19 other spots all over the leg. Strain them in a colander and dry them in the kitchen towel. Spread them out in the roasting pan. Sprinkle with coarse salt and the remaining rosemary leaves.
Reduce the remaining anchovies to a paste in the food processor with the tablespoon of oil. Add the coarse pepper to the paste and cover the roast with this paste. Place it on top of the potatoes. Bake for 15 minutes at 425F before reducing to 375F (190C). Turn the roast over and toss the potatoes around before returning to the oven for another hour and thirty minutes.
Remove the roast from the oven. Place on a cutting board and cover loosely with aluminum foil for 15 minutes before carving. Toss the potatoes and leave them in the oven.
Place the ingredients of the sauce in the food processor and blend. Reserve in a sauce dish.

Serves 8. Accompany with a side dish of green beans.

Green Beans (Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 30 minutes, Cheap)

Ingredients:
2 lbs (1 kg) French string beans, both end of the beans removed
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh butter or olive oil

Material:
1 6-quart pan
Colander

Fill up the pan with water. Add the salt and bring to a boil over the high range of the stove. When the water is seriously boiling, add the string beans. Cook for 20 minutes, without covering to preserve the bright green coloring of the beans. Strain and place in a serving bowl. Toss with butter or oil and serve immediately.

Grannie’s chocolate cake (Easy, Preparation and cooking time:45 minutes, Cheap)

Ingredients:
7 oz (250g) dark chocolate with at least 55% cacao content
1 stick sweet butter (113g)
1tablespoon (14g) all-purpose flour
7 oz (250g) crystallized sugar
6 eggs separated

Material:
1 saucepan
2 salad bowls
1 wooden spoon
1 eggbeater
1 silicone spoon
1 9-inch silicone mold

Turn the oven on to 360F (182C)

Unwrap the butter and place it in the saucepan. Set the saucepan on the lower setting of the gas and bake until the butter is just melted. Turn off the gas. Add the chocolate broken in small pieces to the butter, stirring occasionally with the wooden spoon until melted.
Separate the whites from the yolks. In the salad bowl containing the yolks, add the sugar and beat until creamy pale yellow. Mix in the sifted flour. Add the melted butter and chocolate, stirring the content until well mixed.
Beat the whites until peaks form. With the silicone spoon add carefully the whites to the batter, until the mixture is homogeneous.
Pour the content in the silicone mold and bake in the oven until the chocolate smell suffuses all the kitchen or 20 minutes have passed.
Let the cake cool before inverting on a plate. A nice touch is to sift a tablespoon of powdered (confectioner) sugar over the top. A caramel or chocolate frosting is nice too.
Serves 8 to 10.