What I had for dinner:

Lamb Chops!

22 Apr 1996 22:38:20 -0400

"Lamb Chops?" What's the big deal you ask? Well, this ties in with yesterday's trip with the New York City Beer Guide to Philadelphia's annual beer festival. Two and a half hour with NJ Transit and SEPTA is a long time, and thoughts turned to food, fixated around lamb chops, iterated about lamb chops.

So, tonight, lamb chops. The serendipitous school of menu management decided that they would be accompanied by roasted small endives and a broiled tomato.

The endives were microwaved until done (about 4 min) and set aside. A large tomato was seeded and peeled (12 seconds in boiling water), and sprinkled with finely minced garlic and fresh rosemary.

The endives were put under the broiler until they began to turn nicely brown. They were turned over, the tomato halves (cut side up) were added to the dish, and returned to the broiler until done. Meanwhile, the well trimmed lamb chops were pan-broiled to medium rare. Chops, endives, and tomatoes were salted to taste, sprinkled with grated lemon rind and minced parsley, a trickle of lemon juice, and served with Italian bread.

To munch on while cooking, I had radishes and fresh fava beans with coarse sea salt. Now is the season for raw fava beans, before they become mealy and beany. Chose firm pods with small beans, roughly the size of a dried pinto bean. Bigger than that and they become the fava bean of nightmares, the Mediterranean olfactory counterpart to Central Europe's boiled cabbage.

To drink, a bottle of Brooklyn lager with dinner; and while typing the recipe, a bottle of Saint Landelin Abbey Brown Ale, a French ale in the style of Belgian Abbey Doubles, with a soft round palate redolent of toffee.