April 1, 2013

Easter Feast

We spent Easter weekend down in NC with Justin's parents, taking in some sun, catching a glimpse of the ocean, and just relaxing.  It was a nice little getaway.  But we didn't stay out of the kitchen for too long.  Since we had to drive back to DC on Sunday, we decided to do Easter dinner on Saturday night.  After an impromptu happy hour on the balcony, we got cookin'.

We tried to keep the menu pretty simple and with spring in mind.  We started the meal with a pea soup.  It's supposed to be a chilled soup, but we ate it at about room temperature, and it was perfect.  The sweetness of the peas was balanced out by the mint, which gave it a refreshing punch.  We couldn't find morel mushrooms, so we used chanterelles instead, and they were delicious!

For the main course, we went with lamb chops (of course!), with a curry cream.  Shout out to my aunt for the recipe!  The lamb gets marinated in some white wine and whole grain mustard.  The curry cream is really where it's at!  It's a simple mixture of whipping cream, paprika, tumeric, cayenne, fenugreek leaves, garlic and lemon juice.  Fenugreek can also be called kasuri methi, and is a common ingredient in Indian food.  Because the rest of our menu was more spring like, we did add a bit of mint to the sauce, to help tie everything together.

For side dishes, we went with asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and the kale/farro/sunchoke hash that we've made a couple times before.
The saltiness of the pancetta was balanced out by the citrus sauce that was drizzled over the top.  And although the kale-sunchoke hash was a bit of the hearty side, relatively, it really helped round out the meal.
We had good intentions to make a dessert of coconut macarons and ice cream, but we all fell into food comas following dinner.  Dessert will have to wait until next time.

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