Kind of blue *

Saturday mornings. Filled with deep kisses and sun rays coming through the bedroom window.

Waking up to the smell of fresh coffee brewing, and crisp, clean air breezing through the open balcony doors.

Calm mornings, filled with shades of blue in the sky and shades of blue on my plate.

Summer is finally upon us and it's bearing gifts in the form of small, round, dark berries. Blueberries rolling on my kitchen counter, every which way. I miss a few and they end up on the floor. I pick them up, swiftly, and give them a rinse. They're okay.

Saturday mornings. Filled with the smell of muffins baking in the oven. Spelt, blueberries, sugar, butter, yoghurt. He can't wait to taste them but he need not wait long. They're almost there.

I have to stop him from eating one; they're too hot. He waits, he's patient. Until he's not anymore. He greedily eats one, I take one too. I can't believe it. Each mouthful is better than the last. They're so incredibly light, so intensely aromatic. Sweet but not overly so with nutty, earthy accents from the spelt—oh how I love spelt. Their crunchy top, thanks to a light sprinkling of demerara sugar, makes me smile and the juicy, sweet blueberries are there, you can taste each and every one.

He looks at me and I can see it in his eyes. He wants another one. I'm afraid they will last no more than a day. That's a good thing.

*Listen to this and dream away... I know I will.








Blueberry and Spelt Muffins
Adapted, ever-so-slightly, from Tender: Volume II

Whenever I see recipes for cakes or muffins that have baking soda, I hesitate to make them. I hate the flavor that it imparts on my sweet creations yet in these little cakes, you can hardly tell there's any in it. Same as in this strawberry cake.

Spelt (Triticum spelta) is really good for you, don't hesitate to use it. Plus, it tastes divine!
In Greece, you can find it sold as dinkel flour in health food stores.

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients
60 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125 g caster sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
110 g Greek strained yoghurt 2% fat (I always use Fage Total because I grew up eating it)
125 g whole wheat spelt flour
125 g all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp coarse sea salt
220 g fresh (or frozen) blueberries
Demerara (or turbinado) sugar for sprinkling on top

Special equipment: 12-cup muffin/cupcake pan, 12 paper liners, stand mixer or hand-held mixer, sieve


Preparation
Place the paper liners in the muffin pan.

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius / 375 Fahrenheit.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl and with a hand-held mixer), beat the butter with the sugar on high speed, until pale in color and creamy.

Add the lightly beaten eggs a little at a time in the butter and sugar mixture and beat well on high speed, until the eggs are fully incorporated and the mixture is fluffy.
Add the vanilla extract and mix, then add the yoghurt and mix on low speed, until incorporated. It won't take more than a few seconds.

Sieve the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder and soda, salt) directly into the butter-sugar-yoghurt mixture, and mix well on medium speed for about 40 seconds, until you have a smooth batter.

Add the blueberries and fold them into the batter using a spatula or spoon, being careful not to break them up.

Note: If you're using frozen blueberries, there's no need to defrost them. Simply add them to the muffin batter.

Using a spoon, or an ice cream scoop which is easier, empty the batter in the muffin pan.
Sprinkle the tops with a little demerara sugar and place the muffin pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven.

Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin, comes out clean.

Allow the muffins to cool a bit in the pan and then transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

You can keep them at room temperature, covered, for 2-3 days.

The Greek lamb

An acquaintance of mine who just started reading my blog, asked me the other day if I was a vegetarian. I guess I can see where he's coming from. I haven't posted a recipe containing meat of any kind since the beginning of February and the total number of meat/poultry recipes on the blog is fifteen. I actually couldn't believe it when I counted them. Only fifteen?

Truthfully, I have no idea how this happened because, dear reader, I'm not a vegetarian nor I think I could ever become a vegetarian. The thing is, I love meat, I just choose not to cook red meat often. Chicken, I have every week.

When I do eat red meat, I make a big deal out of it. I want it to be special and I always cook dishes that I absolutely love, like pork souvlaki, mousakas, grilled rib-eye steak, keftedakia (meatballs), a good kokkinisto (veal in tomato sauce), or pastitsada.

By the way, I desperately want to share with you my recipes for all the aforementioned dishes that I haven't shared with you already, and it will happen, one at a time, I promise. We're off to a very good start with this one though. Greek leg of lamb roasted in the oven with potatoes.

You know, everybody thinks that Greeks eat lamb all the time. Let me tell you this, we don't. Us Greeks love lamb but it's a special occasion-kind of meat. We always eat it on Pascha (Easter day) and it is usually reserved for celebrations and Sunday big family lunches, where grilled lamb chops and lamb roasted in the oven are special treats. Oh, and mousakas and pastitsio, two famous Greek dishes that I'm sure you're familiar with, are never made with minced lamb but with minced veal.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest, let's talk about this dish, my favorite lamb dish. Whenever I cook it, I'm instantly transported back to my childhood, when I would wake up to the smell of lamb roasting in the oven. My mom would always slow cook it for hours, making everyone crazy with hunger.

This is the way I've learned how to cook it, no frills, no flamboyant preparations, just simple flavors that depend on the quality of the lamb. Preferably spring lamb, which is the lamb of choice in Greece.

The combination of crispy skin, flavorful, succulent meat with lemony, garlicky accents and melt in the mouth potatoes that are fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside, is a magnificent one. There's no going back to any other kind of lamb dish after tasting this one, trust me.

Arni me Patates sto Fourno (Greek Oven-Roasted Leg of Lamb with Potatoes)

The way the potatoes are cut for this dish, a traditional Greek way to cut potatoes for oven-roasting, is called "kidonates", which means like a quince, because they resemble quince wedges. Cut in this way, the potatoes take a longer time to cook, which is why they're added to the roasting pan from the start along with the lamb.

It's best if you trim the excess fat off the lamb, leaving just a thin layer of it that will keep the meat juicy, not only because it's healthier but also because the fat tends to make the flavor of the lamb very heavy.

Serve the meat on individual plates, arrange some potatoes on the side and drizzle with the cooking juices. Put some dijon mustard, or any other kind of mustard you prefer, on the side of your plate and dip your forkful of lamb in it. That's the way to go. Along with a glass of white wine, yes white wine works with lamb, believe me, or a cold glass of beer, a rocket salad or a Greek Horiatiki salad, and of course lots of bread to dip in the juices, you're all set. Enjoy!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
1½ - 2 kg leg of lamb, on the bone, trimmed of extra fat
6-7 large, floury potatoes, peeled and cut in large wedges ("kidonates")
2 large lemons, freshly juiced
6 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
150 ml good-quality olive oil (I always use extra virgin)
250-300 ml water
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Special equipment: roasting pan, large enough to hold the lamb and the potatoes


Preparation
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Place the leg of lamb in the roasting pan and score it on 8-9 different places (bottom and top of the leg), making small incisions that will fit half of a garlic clove. Squeeze a garlic clove-half into each incision with your thumb and scatter the rest of the garlic clove halves on the roasting pan.
Arrange the potato wedges around the lamb, in one layer. Sprinkle the lamb and the potatoes with salt, black pepper and dried oregano on all sides.
Drizzle with the olive oil and add the lemon juice over the lamb and potatoes.
Add the water on the bottom of the roasting pan and jiggle the pan around to mix the liquids.

Place the pan on the low rack of the preheated oven and roast for about 2 hours (for well done), turning the potatoes (being careful not to break them up) and lamb over halfway, and checking from time to time to see whether the potatoes need more water. You don't want them to be dry.
If you like your lamb rare or medium-rare, you may want to check it after 1 hour and 15 minutes. Make a cut with a knife in the middle of the leg and check the color. If it's too pink for your liking, cook it for a little longer.

Remove the pan from the oven, allow to stand for 10 minutes and then serve.

For a spring day

There's nothing that screams Spring more than fresh, green asparagus.

About a month ago, I ate my first asparagus of the year. It was more of a ritual rather than a simple act of eating. It began with the careful selection of the bunch, they had to be firm, smooth and brightly-colored with tightly-closed tips, and when I brought them home, I immediately placed them upright in a large jar, filled it halfway with water and put them in the fridge.






They didn't stay there long. The next day, I chopped off that woody part of the stem, even though they were so tender there was hardly anything to cut off. I thought about boiling them or steaming them but no, they were so young they deserved more than that. They deserved to be eaten raw.

There's nothing more delicious than raw, fresh green asparagus.






I poured some Greek extra virgin olive oil in a small ramekin, placed the sea salt next to it as well as the black pepper mill and we started eating spear after spear just like that. Dipping and salting and biting, dipping, salting, biting. It's the small things, I tell you.
I could have paired them with lamb chops or shaved them into a salad with mint and some sautéed lemony fresh peas, which I actually did the following week, but just like that, raw, they satisfied every craving I had for them.






Asparagus will make their appearance on my dinner table many more times until the season is over. I foresee asparagus tartines with walnuts and pecorino; this salad, which is one of my all-time favorites; grilled, charred asparagus, which is a beautiful thing, full of smoky flavor and nutty goodness; oven-roasted with Spanish smoked paprika, either hot or sweet; asparagus pesto, draped over an oven-baked piece of fish, which I actually made this past week and I'm still daydreaming about. I have to share it with you soon.






But let me tell you about this dish. Blanched asparagus with a lemon sabayon. There's no surprises when it comes to pairing asparagus with lemon, it's a match made in heaven, but pairing them with a lemon sabayon, is like walking on cloud nine. Literally, your taste buds will feel like they're inside a little savory fluffy cloud.






Sabayon is the French version of the Italian zabaglione which is a foamy, custard- or mousse-like dessert that is made by whisking eggs, sugar and white wine over a bain-marie until lightly thickened and frothy. This is a savory version. One that incorporates butter and lemon into the fluffy egg mixture, resulting in a light sauce, reminiscent of the Greek avgolemono.






The lightness of the sabayon, its foamy, smooth like lightly whipped cream texture and its subtle lemon flavor is such a perfect pairing with the nutty earthiness and slight sweetness of the green asparagus. With a glass of white wine and some good sourdough bread, there's nothing I'd rather eat for lunch on a hot spring day.











Green Asparagus with Lemon Sabayon
Adapted, just a tad, from Raymond Blanc

This savory lemon sabayon can not only be paired with asparagus but also green beans, pan-fried fish fillets like sea bass or salmon, or poached chicken.

Making sabayon is pretty straightforward but you need to be careful not to scramble the eggs. Keep the water of the bain-marie at a bare simmer. The sabayon mustn't get too hot during mixing, otherwise it will become grainy. The whole process is rather quick though, so you don't need to worry too much.






Yield: 4-6 salad servings

Ingredients

for the sabayon
3 large egg yolks (around 60 g)
60 ml cold water
50 g unsalted butter, melted, hot
2 tsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
Sea salt
Freshly ground white pepper

for the asparagus
1-1 ½ kg fresh, green asparagus
a little extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground white pepper

Special equipment: hand-held mixer, fine sieve


Preparation

for the sabayon
In a large, heatproof bowl, add the egg yolks and the cold water. Beat with a hand-held mixer on high speed, until the mixture becomes pale in color and fluffy in texture and quadruples or even quintuples in volume.

Set the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water (bain-marie). The bottom of the bowl must not come in contact with the simmering water otherwise the eggs will scramble. Continue to beat the mixture with the hand-held mixer, on medium speed, until it starts to thicken, for about 7 minutes. If the mixture begins to steam, remove the bowl from the heat, continue beating the mixture and return after it has cooled down a bit.
When the mixture reaches the soft-ribbon stage (when you lift up the beater and let the sauce drip inside the bowl, you can see a ribbon forming on the surface), remove the bowl from over the pan and slowly beat in the hot melted butter (hand-held mixer on low speed). Add the lemon juice and beat again for 10 seconds. Season with sea salt and freshly ground white pepper and have a taste. Adjust seasoning if needed.

Pass the sabayon through a fine sieve to get rid of any small pieces of egg. Leave it aside until needed. You should end up with a fluffy, aerated mixture that is light and smooth.



for the asparagus
You can read here on how to clean, peel and trim the asparagus.
I didn't trim mine because they were very young and tender spears.

Fill a large pot with water and bring it to the boil. Add a little salt to the water, followed by the asparagus. Blanch them for 3-4 minutes, or until they are tender, without putting the lid on the pan. You can test them by inserting the tip of a knife into one of the spears. Be careful not to boil them for too long, they need to be a little crunchy.
Drain the asparagus and immediately run them under cold running water to cool them down and to stop them from cooking further.

Note: Blanching means to plunge raw vegetables or fruit into boiling water, and boil them for a few seconds to a few minutes (depending on the fruit/vegetable), until they slightly soften but still retain their crisp texture and vivid color.

In a large plate, drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil and add a sprinkling of sea salt. Grind some white pepper on top and coat the asparagus lightly with the olive oil. You don't want them to be swimming in olive oil though.
Alternatively, you can just sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper and forget about the olive oil. The dish will be lighter. Your choice.

Arrange the asparagus spears onto a large serving plate and drizzle over the lemon sabayon. Serve immediately.

You can keep the sabayon in the refrigerator for a day, it is equally delicious served cold as it is warm. It will probably lose some of its fluffiness but none of its flavor.