Pass Over the Pepper

The most important holiday in my West Coast liberal Jewish/WASP/Buddhist-influenced family of choice is Passover. Our seder, always held on the convenient weekend instead of the official first day, has for years provided a casual, cozy place for my family's circle of vaguely Jewy friends who, in avoiding the stressful family dynamics that such holidays usually provide, have managed to create an intimate group of families and friends who loudly joke, cook, bicker, and drink their way through the proceedings.

Turns out that relatives are relative. 

The menu has, over the years, developed into a routine despite my mother's best efforts. Along with a few of her close friends - all loud, opinionated Jewish(y) women with what you might politely call "strong personalities" - certain recipes have become canon, with people threatening to not attend if my mother doesn't make her lamb recipe or Karen comes without her passover cake and so on. Often the people making the demands of these women are each other. And their children. Because, although I can imagine a seder without these things, it isn't one I can feign much excitement about. 

And so when I moved across the country for graduate school and could no longer afford to come home for my parents' seder, there were a few recipes I took with me.

It took me three years to get Karen's secret family recipe for her Passover cake, and I only got access to it by arguing that I was a legitimate family member, so that remains a secret. And because the cake is out of this world, even for someone like me who isn't much into cake, I apologize for your inferior life experience. You will just have to experiment with nut flour, egg whites, and whipped cream in hopes of creating a vague shadow of the epic deliciousness that is this cake.

I will give you my mother's lamb recipe, which has converted goys, lamb-haters, and vegetarians to this once-a-year, Jewish, lamb-filled, unapologetically pink and juicy meat bonanza. It isn't really hers, so much as it's straight out of the Silver Palate Cookbook, but it has all the nostalgia, taste, and notoriety of a traditional family recipe. It took almost as much badgering to get as the cake recipe, but for different reasons. My mother's original description of the recipe was "Oh, I just put the lamb in the oven and cook it for awhile." Eight hours of marination, over half a dozen ingredients, and a whole lot of phone calls about cooking techniques later, I finally got the whole thing out of her.

I had a (somewhat) irrational fear of running out of food, so for a crowd of fourteen underfed students I bought a 8 lb leg of lamb and a 5 lb shoulder, both bone-in. The best combination of cheap and quality lamb was found at one of my local Italian Market butchers - I visited and called around at some of the local supermarkets and they either had small, sad-looking cuts for a dollar cheaper (Acme, Superfresh type places) or large, prewrapped legs of lamb for several dollars more (Wegman's). The butcher at Cannuli's deboned the lamb (although was slightly confused by my request to keep one of the shank bones whole for the seder plate!) and wrapped it up for me. As you can see from the bag, it isn't exactly a kosher establishment, but I was pretty thrilled with my purchase.

Because this recipe calls for extensive marination, it doesn't have to be the most tender or quality cut. I bought my lamb on the Thursday before my Saturday seder, which meant it had over 24 hours to marinate. The shoulder made for less beautiful slices, but still tasted wonderful, so it's easy to save a few dollars by getting the less quality cut. 

The marinade is a potent mixture of soy sauce, wine, vinegar, dried spices, and fresh mint and rosemary. After cooking, the leftover drippings make a mean gravy.

Rolling the roasts was sort of an experience, as I hadn't ever tied a shoulder together before - it was a little more difficult and less intuitive than the leg. 

There's probably a fast, easy, standard way to do this, but I don't know what it is. I just tried to wrap it evenly, and tied it tightly. It worked out.

It wasn't until several hours after the meal (and quite a few glasses of wine) that I saw the unopened bottle of mustard on the kitchen table and realized that I'd forgotten to cover the lamb in a mustard-peppercorn crust. It adds a lovely, crispy, spicy touch to the lamb and, although my mother used to leave it off when there were a lot of small children at the table who couldn't handle the spicy pepper, it's one of the defining traits to this recipe. Despite that, I didn't realize it was missing until I'd eaten my share of the meat (neither did anyone else), and so it is optional. But it's also better.

Passover Lamb

From The Silver Palate Cookbook by way of my mother

Wash and pat dry:

5 lb leg of lamb

[unrolled and de-boned]

Combine:

1 tb peppercorn

1 tb fresh rosemary [I usually use more]

one bunch mint leaves

5 cloves, crushed

1/2 cup sweet vinegar [the original recipe calls for raspberry, I used balsamic.]

1/4 soy sauce

1/2 cup dry red wine 

Pour marinade over the lamb and refrigerate, turning the meat every so often, for at least 8 hours and up to a couple of days.

Take the lamb out of the fridge a few hours before cooking to bring to room temperature.

Roll the lamb with cooking twine and cover with:

2 tb Dijon

2-5 tb peppercorns

Put lamb on meat rack in a baking dish and pour the marinade around the lamb. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for about an hour and a half (18 minutes a pound). Let roast stand for 20 minutes before slicing and serving. Retain cooking juices for gravy. 

 

Happy Passover, holiday of your choice, or unattached lamb-filled feast!