Do you ever watch that Rachel Ray show, 30 Minute Meals? Though I don’t always love her food, I really admire Rachel Ray for building the cooking empire that she started by just doing cooking demonstrations in her local grocery store. However, one thing that I do find slightly deceiving is the fact that she touts these 30 minute meals that in reality would take average people about an hour, unless they move incredibly quickly and have great knife skills.
I do think it’s more realistic to tout full meals that can be made in 45-60 minutes though. That’s what I have here – a dinner that I made in about an hour. I know it’s not super fast for days when you get home at 8:30 and you just want to be eating by 9 (really, those days you’ll probably just order take-out anyway), but realistic if you’re home around 7 and want to be eating at 8. Growing up, my mother made a great dinner almost every night, despite the fact that she cooked her butt off every day at her restaurant. Thanks Mom!
On the menu for my fast dinner: Feta and tomato salad, grilled zucchini, and lamb with mint chimichurri sauce.
When I went to Fairway, the legendary and amazing grocery store on the UWS, I went with the idea that I would just buy some vegetables that were fresh, in season, and therefore, inexpensive. I came across the zucchini first and saw that they were only $1.29 a pound! What a deal! And they looked gorgeous.
Don't they look delectable?
In a sealable gallon sized plastic bag, I mixed the ingredients of my marinade – the juice of one lemon, about 1/4 a cup of olive oil, 3 minced garlic cloves, and salt and pepper. Then I sliced and cleaned my wonderful zucchinis.
Clean zucchini!
Okay, zucchini, you sit here and marinade while I make chimichurri.
Chimichurri is usually made with parsley and/or cilantro, but because I’m using lamb, I decided to use a combination of parsley and mint. I love mint. It’s especially great in the summer, because it’s kind of cooling and refreshing to the palette. Also, chimichurri is something that requires many ingredients, all that need to be chopped. Therefore, I’m going to bust out my handy-dandy food processor! This is one of my favorite kitchen toys. It was also a gift from my sister Rowena. Hi Rowena! I’m going to start off by putting 5 peeled cloves of garlic and 1 shallot, cut into forths, into the food processor.
Garlic and shallots reading to get chopped
I turn on the food processor for about 5-10 seconds. Some people like their chimichurri really chunky, others really smooth. I’m sort of in between.
Next, I’ll wash my parsley and my mint. I’m not too worried about the stems of the parsley, so I keep part of them on. Parsley has a tendency to hold on to a lot of dirt, even the flat-leaf kind, so after rinsing the mint and parsley thoroughly, I’ll spin them in the salad spinner.
All clean! And dry!
I’ll throw that into the food processor along with the juice of a lemon, about 1/3 of a cup of olive oil, some crushed red pepper flakes, and some salt and pepper. I let that pulse for about 8 second intervals, while scraping the sides in between. Chimichurri sauce is pretty forgiving and therefore very flexible in terms of flavor and texture preferences. At this point, the chimichurri is done, but taste it and adjust it to your preference.
Okay, now it’s time to broil the zucchini. I know it’s the summer time and people don’t turn on their broilers if they have a barbecue, but I don’t have a barbecue! If you do have one, rather than using the broiler, feel free to use your grill. I would if I had one.
I don’t have a fancy broiling pan, so I line my zucchini up on my smallest sheet pan and put it in to broil. After about 10 minutes, I’ll turn the pan around, because the back of the broiler is hotter than the front.
Into the broiler!
Now it’s time to marinate the lamb. I’m using the same marinade that I used for the zucchini. Again, cross contamination isn’t a problem, because I removed the zucchini before marinading the lamb. While the lamb is marinating, I’m going to work on my Feta tomato salad (I’ll save the details of that dish for another post).
Saving the marinade saves time!
I’ve used about 1 3/4 a pound of butterflied leg of lamb. It’s one of the cheaper cuts of lamb, but it’s still delicious. After about 10-15 minutes in the bag, it’s time to grill the lamb. Wait, I live in a Manhattan apartment and don’t have a grill. Ah, but I have a well-seasoned cast iron grill pan! Yesss! I preheat the skillet until it’s lightly smoking, and then I plop my lamb on top of the grill. It smells incredible.
Mmmm, lamb!
I like my lamb rare to medium rare, so I them cook for about 4 minutes on each side. Butterflied leg of lamb isn’t incredibly thick, so it’s cooks pretty quickly. I let one of the pieces go for about 5 minutes on each side, for a nice medium cook. I should let each piece rest for about 5-10 minutes before slicing, but I actually just let it rest for about 3. It seems to have turned out just fine.
Sliced leg of lamb, cooked medium rare and rare
I had left overs of everything, so this should probably serve 4 people. Here are the recipes!
- the juice of 1 lemon
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/4 of a cup of olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- 1 tsp of dried oregano
- 3 zucchinis (I had big fat ones, so I actually only used 2)
- 1 3/4 pound of butterflied boneless leg of lamb
Mix the first six ingredients in a large, gallon sized plastic bag. Slice up the zucchinis into quarters, length-wise. Marinate them in the bag for about 10-15 minutes. Preheat your broiler (or grill, if you’re fortunate enough to have one). Broil/grill the zucchini for 20 minutes, or until you have a nice brown char on them While the zucchini are cooking, take the lamb and add it to the left over marinade. Let it sit in the marinade for 10-15 minutes. While that’s marinating, if you’re using a cast iron grill pan, take that out and preheat it on the stove top. Heat it until it is smoking lightly and then add the butterflied legs of lamb. Cook them for 4 minutes on each side if you like it rare to medium rare. Take the lamb off the grill and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. After resting, slice the lamb thinly against the grain.
For the mint chimichurri:
- 4-5 cloves of garlic (based on your garlic preference)
- 1 shallot
- 1 cup of flat leafed parsley, washed thoroughly
- 1/2 cup of mint, washed thoroughly
- 1/3 to 1/2 a cup of olive oil
- the juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp of red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1 tsp of ground black pepper
In a food processor, add the garlic and shallots so they can be chopped first. Turn the food processor on for about 5-10 seconds. Add the washed mint and parsley, and pulse the food processor until the greens are chopped, but not pureed. Add the rest of the ingredients and do a final 5 second spin of the food processor. Taste the chimichurri before you take it out of the food processor, so you can adjust the flavor according to your preferences. I usually don’t like my chimichurri to be completely pureed, but others do. I’ve seen recipes that also double the amount of olive oil that they use. It’s all up to you. Serve the chimichurri along side the zucchini and lamb.
In my next post – Feta tomato salad and some time saving kitchen tips!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I was right along with you until I saw the use of the salad spinner. Sigh. I hate salad spinners. Also, I hope you will do something with those little bamboo steamers so I can get a blog shout-out as well. Your lamb looked lovely, and that chimichurri sauce looked delicious. I love sauces. And dips. I have recently developed a mild obsession with lime vinaigrette, and Newman’s Own has a version that is so delicious and refreshing, I would drink it straight out of the bottle if it were socially acceptable.
Elissa, I’m so impressed! I am always wary of cooking lamb for some reason, but you’ve inspired me to cook it again, and soon – it’s so delicious! I like that I bought you a nicer food processor than the one I have. I also like salad spinners.