Saturday, February 21, 2009

A Pair of Random Meals

Biscuits and gravy meets pasta. Or the unholy child of a Frenchman and an Italian living in the South. Either way, a quick bechamel with the addition of browned Italian sausage equals a pretty comforting pasta sauce. A little Pecorino Romano in there too.

Bechamel does not equal cream, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Lamb, mashed potato, and Swiss on an English Muffin. A mashed potato sandwich. I love eating at places where they elevate a standard, normally inexpensive dish that's good in its own right, by using awesome and/or over-the-top ingredients. Foie gras poutine is an easy example, as I imagine is Ad Hoc's fried chicken or WD-50's eggs Benedict.

This is no foie gras poutine, or Keller-inspired fried chicken--it's no transformed standard--but it was a pretty good open faced sandwich. The local potatoes are enriched with copious amounts of creme fraiche, the lamb loin is from a freshly slaughtered local beast and it was coated in the same spices that are used in merguez sausage before being seared, and the Swiss is from a local grassfed operation whose name I can't remember. The English muffin--it's Thomas'. If it's good enough for Wylie . . . .

2 comments:

DianeS said...

I am guessing that the swiss you had is the same local grass fed swiss I have had (I also can't remember the name) and it is an excellent swiss cheese. I am very into that cheese right now and every person I've served it too has commented on how much they like it, seriously, every person.

As for english muffins, I haven't found one I like better than Thomas'.

The CFT said...

The cheese I have is good, but I'd like it to be even better. It came as a shrinkwrapped, labeled brick, and I don't think that didn't help things.