Oh yes....Sweet Potato French Toast!

My sister and I used some amazing sweet potatoes picked up at last Saturday's (first day of Spring!!) Farmer's market.  Needless to say, if you are a sweet potato fan, the simple preparation using duck fat as the oil, and organic brown sugar and agave nectar to sweeten, with a little quatre epices left over from duck confit some months ago, made the large dice roast potatoes delicious.  We paired these with a black-eyed pea, kale, and rice dish with Southern American flavorings.

Just two of these monstrous potatoes were enough to feed four, plus leave to much extra for the following day.  This morning, finding them still in the fridge, despite the hungry roommates, a thought popped into mind:  Use them in the food processor with some half-n-half and eggs to make a most delicious french toast batter.  I used an organic French Baquette fromm New season, sliced on a long bias, and soaked the bread for about 20 minutes in the mixture while heating the oven to 450° F.  I heated a half-sheet pan with about 2 oz of butter in the oven, and when the oven was hot (and the butter had achieved a wonderful nut-brown aroma) I pulled the pan out of the oven and packed tightly in a single layer of soaked bread onto the sizzling buttered surface.  These I baked until the top had achieved a beautiful browned crust, and lo, when flipped, the butter browned bottoms had a color demanding of immediate edibility.

Served with Vermont maple syrup (acquired, of all places, from a buffet at a time-share on Maui...ha!), it was a delicous start to the day!

Coffee Braised Lamb

I had to try it.

The orginal recipe was an obscure find online for something called Red-Eye Gravy.  Traditionally, this is made with ham and coffee, pepper onions, carrots.  I wanted lamb.  So I had to try it.  To say it was well received would be an understatement.  Let me start by saying that I would make it again, but probably not very often.

I made my own brown stock, using oxtail (the meat from which went into the most amazing French Onion soup to which I have been party).  Using homemade maple cured bacon, pre-cooked flageolet beans, a bouquet garni of rosemary, parsley and thyme, lamb arms that had been well seared, sherry to deglaze, large dice of onion, red peppr and carrot, and a sauce mix of 50/50 fresh brewed nicauraguan coffee and my beef stock to top.  In this order, I layered a cast iron braising in pot, roughly 10 inches oval, and these ingredients filled the pan to the tip top.  I finished the dish by reducing the braising liquid to a sauce with added truffle butter, and a garnish of parsley.  A very peasant appearing meal, hearty and full of flavor.  The bitter element of the coffee is well balanced with the meaty flavor developed by braising for 3 hours, and the collected fond. The vegetables, being on top of the whole dish, get a chance to roast against the lid of the pan, before succombing to the rising tide of released juices from the intermingling layers of savory ingredients.  The lamb was, of course, fork tender; the vegetables were excellent with the sauce, and the beans were subtle, as flageolet are wont to be.

Critically, I have issue with the cross-smell of coffee and bell pepper, as the two together remind me of years of composting, and the trip from the kitchen to the outdoor drop-site.  Not that this is unpleasant in its ideals, but somehow the mixture of coffee grinds and spent vegetable ends sets my olefactory cringing.  A lesser balanced cook may have difficulty with this recipe, as it does, with said ingredients, require quite a balncing act of flavors to achieve its end.  I might try to a different vegetable combination, though I have no doubt the recipe would work very well for the intended ham, sans the bacon.