The Rest of Us

[Sneakeater]

1.  It was sold more as a "pork pot pie" than a proper English pork pie.  BUT:

a.  It was certainly SHAPED like a pork pie.  BUT:

b.  There was no jelly.

2.  Having just had some leftovers for lunch, it was DEFINITELY better at room temperature than hot.  There is NO question.

3.  Pickled beets are really good with a pork pie.

[Wilfrid]

Ah, in the above post I was really talking about English pub pork pies.

If your pie was more like a pot pie, I am going to speculate that it didn't have a hot water crust and was really something other than the kind of pork pie I insist must not be heated. (Room temperature is fine, of course.)

[Sneakeater]

I think it was sort of an attempt at an English pork pie.  Like their porchetta is sort of an attempt at porchetta.

(It's strange how hit and miss those essays can be:  their rolled beef certainly nails it, and while I've never had a boerewors before that I can remember, theirs certainly tasted good enough.)

[Sneakeater]

I'll bet THEY thought they were making a Melton Mowbray.

But as I said, no jelly.

[Wilfrid]

I remember my father trying to make dinner for himself putting a pork pie in the microwave. Very sad.

[Sneakeater]

I'm almost there.

[Sneakeater]

Have I ever made a roast leg of lamb before?  I'm not sure.  Not since I began to know what I was doing in the kitchen, that's for sure.

Don't get the wrong idea.  This wasn't The Rosy Leg Of Lamb Of My Dreams.  But that got me thinking.  I realized that things fairly consistently overcook on the steam-convection setting of my combi oven, and fairly consistently undercook on the plain convection setting (tonight was mostly cooked on steam, with some plain convection at the end to crisp).  And I remembered that one of the selling points of the steam setting was that it was supposed to cook things faster. 

DUH.  I never paid attention to that.  When I'm cooking on steam, I should be adjusting the times down.  DUH.

(Instead, I keep worrying about how the other setting habitually undercooks.) (Probably because without the steam my combi is just another wimpy countertop oven.)

This lamb tasted delicious.  (With all the garlic and anchovies and butter in and on it, how could it not?)  It just could have been more tender.  (I DID baste it like a demon.)

Oddly, the recipe I followed doesn't have you put potatoes at the bottom of the roasting pan.  Why ever would you not?  I sure did.  And they were probably the best part.  How could they not be, sopping up all that delicious lamb fat as it rendered?  And with those absorbotrons sitting in the pan juices, I didn't have to do any skimming before I reduced the juices to a jus (with the potatoes throwing in some not fully appropriate, but welcome to me, thickening starch).

So the lamb, with the jus and some mint sauce.  Those potatoes (SO delicious!).  And some minted mushy peas.  (Yeah, I'm on a kick.  But don't worry:  I'm going to a different country tomorrow.)

I don't know how, but I came up with a pairing that nobody in the world has ever thought of in all wine history.

1986 Chateau Duhart-Milon

Left Bank Bordeaux with roast lamb. Who'da thunk?

This Pauillac chateau is owned and operated by the Lafite branch of the Rothschilds.  (I mean, BFD -- but it's a fact.)  It's a classic Pauillac:  brambly fruit (blackberry, cassis), tobacco/leather, eucalyptus.  (No chocolate that I'm tasting, at least -- but I think of that as more a Saint-Émilion thing.)

I have no recollection whatsoever of buying this bottle.  It's like it just appeared in my storage unit as I was tooling around for a Left Bank Bordeaux today.

I didn't like the way the cork smelled, and was a little worried about this bottle.  But it tasted like Old Wine, nothing worse.  And although I gave it good long decant, it's getting better by the minute even now, post-prandially.

So now I'll make the obligatory statement.  We don't drink this kind of wine any more.  On the whole, that's a good thing:  fashionable Natural wines are more approachable, more attuned to pairing with the kind of food we usually eat, more fun than this stodgy wine that demands a hunk of simply roasted meat.  BUT:  when you're having a simple roast, this pairing is just heaven.

It would be a shame if we lost this kind of wine completely.

[Sneakeater]

Trust The Process:  I didn't salt the potatoes (unheard of!) because I trusted that all the saltiness from the copious anchovies used to season the lamb would leach into them.

And . . . it did!

[Sneakeater]

Oh.  Oh.  Oh.

Five and a half hours after decant, this wine is fucking THERE.

Any flaws have melted away.  The fruit floats on the secondaries.

THIS is why people used to drink Bordeaux.

[AaronS]

that really sounds terrific.

[joethefoodie]

7 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

(Instead, I keep worrying about how the other setting habitually undercooks.) (Probably because without the steam my combi is just another wimpy countertop oven.)

I don't necessarily agree with this. 

[Sneakeater]

You weren't here for the brisket I made three years ago.

[voyager]

9 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I don't know how, but I came up with a pairing that nobody in the world has ever thought of in all wine history.

1986 Chateau Duhart-Milon

Left Bank Bordeaux with roast lamb. Who'da thunk?

This Paulliac chateau

Things that grow together go together?

[Wilfrid]

Takes me back to boning, stuffing and roasting a shoulder of lamb. That was a project.

[Sneakeater]

I will repeat:

1.  This pork pie was MUCH better at room temperature than hot.  (I almost think it was Butcher Malpractice for the butcher not to tell me that when I asked how to reheat it.)

2.  This pork pie went VERY well with pickled beets.