This past week, I had the pleasure of spendig time with family in Louisville. It was fantastic to see everyone and to be able to enjoy the city for more than a quick weekend trip. As expected, the trip's activities centered around bourbon and good food. I enjoyed some fantasic ribs at Doc Crow's in NuLu, hearty sandwiches and soup at Wallace Station in Midway, KY (prior to our tour to Wooford Reserve), a delicious lunch at Gyhslain that Dad has posted about earlier, and a fun and delicious meal at L&N Wine Bistro with Dad, Crystal and Uncle David and Aunt Debbie. However, the most interesting culinary experience of the trip took place on Friday night dinner as Dad and I prepared a VERY traditional Jewish dinner of homemade fettucine with a braised lamb ragu, housemade chorizo and mushroom pizzas, and fire roasted shrimp on the barbie.
Dad and I had been discussing what to make for Friday night dinner almost all week, original thoughts focused on German food (Oktoberfest?), but somewhat slowly evolved into Italian.
Making the pasta:
Dad took the lead on this one, as I have never made pasta before and he had some experience with the homemade pasta maker Taylor and Alex bought for him. As with all pasta recipes, the ingredients were very straightforward; flour, eggs, and water made up the majority of our dough. Through a fairly strenuous and tense process we were able to roll out about 15 strips of dough, without yelling at each other too much, that would be run through the pasta cutter once all of the guests arrived.
Making the ragu:
Braised meat and pasta has been something I crave a lot lately. Maybe it is due to the changing seasons or just because it is delicious when done well, but I was pretty adamant about going this direction for the dinner. Leg of lamb was the meat of choice on this night, which was marinated overnight in some worstecire, wine, garlic, thyme and rosemary. The lamb was braised in the oven for about 2.5 hours and then shredded and added to the pasta sauce I had been making while the meat was cooking. The sauce was fairly basic, but developed a very rich and deep flavor. Would love to tell you what I put in it, but honestly with any sort of sauce, soup or chili I just end up messing around with it until it starts to taste good. It definitely had tomato sauce and paste, sugar, vinegar, basil, garlic and mushrooms.
Making the pizza:
A few weeks prior to my arrival, Dad had bought some hot peppers from the farmer's market and had warned me that he fully intended to use them while I was in town. We were not sure what we were going to do with them exactly, but ended up making a great chili sauce that incorporated the peppers he bought, lime juice, red wine vinegar, cilantro, and an assortment of other peppers that he had on hand. We tasted and sampled the sauce as it developed more and more complexity over the course of the day and night and decided that it was assertive enough that the peppers came through, but flavorful enough that it was usable. We decided to make two items with this sauce, one was a homemade pork sausage that combined the sauce, ground pork, parsley and some garlic. The sausage was topped on some lavash bread with tomato sauce, mushrooms and mozzerella and made into a pizza. Additionally, we marinated some shrimp in the sauce and grilled for some killer appetizers.
Another highlight of the evening was the bread the Larry made. Fantastic! I printed out the recipe and will be making some soon up in Chicago. Once toasted, garlic and the juice of some cherry tomatoes were spread on the bread to make a delicious addition to the pasta dinner. The crust on this bread was unbelievable, couldn't believe it was not from a bakery.
As expected, Aunt Debbie was in charge of dessert and she did not a disappoint. She prepared a beautiful and delicious trifle, that was rumored to be very low in fat (although taste would suggest otherwise). For some reason, I am always a sucker for a trifle, I still remember being made fun of quite harshly for bringing one I made to a friend's party when we were 24...oh well. This was a great ending to the shabbat meal.
Overall, what a great night. Cannot beat great food, bourbon and most importantly company.
For the main course Larry had made some crusty bread with sprinkle corn meal which was fabulous. I brought over some risotto and butternut squash lasagna that I had previously made. Melinda made a light salad of leaf lettuce, sauteed pears, gorgonzola and balsamic vinegar, I sauteed some hericort verde with butter and almonds and Larry sauteed some large shrimp in olive oil, butter and white wine. Another fantastic meal was created! We had a Terrenos wine from Argentinian producer Crios, which was very light and slightly tart and went very well with the meal.
