Description

Learn how to make Root Beer Lamb with Toasted Sesame, as shown in this video by Chef John of Foodwishes.

Transcript

How to Make Root Beer Lamb with Toasted Sesame Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with a very unusual dish, lamb braised with root beer and toasted sesame seeds. This dish I saw, Richard Blaise making. I asked him for a demo and it tasted really great. He did it on lamb ribs. By the way, serve it with a coleslaw ice cream there he is with the liquid nitrogen freezing it. I don’t have that, so I’m just making it at the lamb part and I’m not using ribs. I’m using lamb shoulder chops, a really nice cut, lots of connective tissue, tons of flavor, a really nice. So, here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to take our Dutch oven on medium high heat and just a little bit of oil and we’re going to brown those off. Now, if you’re in a hurry you don’t have to do this. I do it just by instinct, just by reflex just by muscle memory because in general when you braised you’re always going to brown the meat first, but this is such a rich, intense dish that you know I don’t even know of how much that does. Alright, so brown those really well on both sides and then we’re going to take it out of the pan, reserve it on the plate and I’m going to deglaze that Dutch oven with one bottle of nice root beer. I’m using Henry Weinhard. I forget hey, they make beer. They must make a good root beer and they had sassafras as an ingredient, so you know it’s a good sign. So, anyway, you’re going to dump in one bottle of that, some reduced sodium soy sauce, some honey. Alright, we’re going to add our McCormick toasted sesame seed which during the demo Richard Blaise said are better than toasting your own because they kind of toast this like a big churning, rotating roaster like coffee beans would be done in and he said they come out much better which makes sense because they roast slower and more evenly beside I burn sesame seeds every time I try to toast them, so this works for me. Some smoked paprika, some dried rosemary, some chipotle pepper. Speaking of chipotle you know, I never saw a Bobby Flay at the Aspen Food and Wine. I never saw him. How is that possible? Alright, so that’s pretty much our braising liquid. We’re going to return our lamb shoulder chops back in there. By the way, I know what you’re thinking. Will this work with lamb shanks? Sure. Alright, lay your lamb maybe. I’m going to squeeze those in. I want to kind and get them evenly distributed. I want to pour over a half of cup of water just give it a little extra liquid to braise in because this is going to cook all pretty long time and that’s it. We’re going to cover that and we’re going to put it in the pre-heated 325 degree over for one and a half hours and when it comes out we’ll give that color. It is just beautiful. So, now what you want to do here you want to make sure it’s pork tender which it was. So, I’m going to pull that out and I’m leaving my braising liquid because we need to reduce this down to more of a glaze, so turn it on high and you know the trick when you turn something like this on high and it starts to bubble vigorously all the fat is going to be push to the middle and it makes it very easy to skim, you see that? Alright, so skim off the fat or most of it, and when it kind of reduces by about half. It’s only going to take about 10 minutes alright. We can turn that to low and we can put our lamb back in and we have this beautiful glaze. I mean look at that. That is gorgeous, totally gorgeous and the taste just really, really spectacular. Alright, so toss the lamb back in there and you just keep that on low until they are ready to serve and to serve it’s not very hard. I’m going to put that on the platter. I’m going to spoon over that just amazing root beer glaze. The toasted sesame in there and that root beer, just great combination. Sprinkle some chopped green onions. It’s very important. You might think hey, that’s just the garnish, it is but that little bit of crisp onioney sharpness really catch through that rich lamb and sweet, sticky, nutty sauce. It’s really important. A little dash in of some more toasted sesame that is a great, very unusual braised dish. Thank you former top chef contestant Richard Blaise, a great recipe. If you have liquid nitrogen, go ahead and make up some coleslaw ice cream. In fact, I’m going to figure up how to do that without liquid nitrogen so stay tuned for that. Anyway, I hope you’ll give that a try. Go to the site all the ingredients are there. A very easy, simple dish and as always, enjoy.