Passport & Plate - Lamb with Traditional Italian Marinade
Italy | Monday, March 10, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
Lamb with Traditional Italian Marinade "Chimichusu"
• 4 forequarter lamb chops
• Salt and pepper to taste
Marinade:
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons of oregano, dried
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 cup olive oli
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar or balsamic
Fried Eggplant, Potato and Capsicum "Melanzane, Patate e Pepe"
• 1 Red capsicum
• 1 Green capsicum
• 1 Large eggplant
• 4 Potatoes, Golden Delight potatoes work well
• 1 cup olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
How to prepare this recipeLamb with Traditional Italian Marinade
1. Mix all marinade ingredients into a bowl and stir well.
2. Massage marinade into lamb chops and leave for half an hour until the flavours have soaked through the meat.
3. Turn on a grill to a medium-high heat and grill each side for three to five minutes on each side, or until cooked to your liking.
4. Brush the meat with the marinade while cooking.
5. Remove from the grill and add salt and pepper to taste.
Fried Eggplant, Potato and Capsicum:
1. Peel the potatoes and chop in half then slice into strips.
2. Cut the capsicum and eggplant into strips and set aside separately.
3. Add a tablespoon of salt to the eggplant and allow to sit for half an hour, this will remove the water and bitterness from the vegetable.
4. Add four table spoons of olive oil into a large pan on a medium-high heat.
5. Add the potatoes and fry until golden brown. Remove and place on a plate lined with a paper towel to remove excess oil.
6. Fry the capsicum until browned and cooked through. Add more olive oil if needed. Remove and place on a plate lined with a paper towel.
7. Add more olive oil to the pan if needed, then add the eggplant. Remove when brown and soft.
8. Add all ingredients back to the pan and mix well. Cooking each separately makes sure they are all cooked evenly.
9. Serve in a bowl as a side dish on the table. Dip with crusty bread to really set off the taste buds.
The story behind this recipeWatching an animal die is kind of a rite of passage for a person growing up in an Italian family. If you can’t watch your food go from paddock to plate, you’re probably not welcome at the dinner table. One of my earliest memories comes from the time my nonna brought me out to the paddock to find a lamb to cook for the family for dinner. We were at the family hobby farm in the hills of Nagambie, Victoria, and even as we pushed the wheelbarrow through the long grass, I wasn’t sure what was happening.
I gripped at my nonna’s hand, I was only five maybe six, and it wasn’t until she began tying the lamb by the legs, and threw it into a wheelbarrow, that I finally realised what was going on. I looked at that crying lamb, calling for its mother, screaming, and I ran crying in the other direction.
We had that little lamb for dinner that night and, slowly, I got used to seeing the circle of life happen right in front of me. Growing up, the whole family got involved with the cooking process. Cow carcasses would hang in my nonna and nonno’s backyard in Melbourne’s inner city suburb of Moonee Ponds. The whole family would get together on a weekend once a year to make sausages; chickens and we children would run around; music would play from an old radio on the windowsill and my nonna would wipe her rough and calloused hands onto her floral apron, proud of a day’s work preparing food for her family.
That day my nonna walked me through the long grass in search of dinner was my first introduction to the harsh realities and the sweet joys of life. While that little lamb’s death came as a shock, the lamb dish we had that day, known in the family as chimichusu, is one of the sweetest joys I’ve come across in family life.
