Dinner@Home

I was out Saturday morning at our training session at the indoor velodrome and our son was taking his lady out to dinner. Sue I decided we would do the same, at home.
How come weekends become so busy. The boy's car was overheating and needed to be picked up and brought home and then Sue and I needed to do the weekly household shopping. It had been a long day.

Sue had the kitchen creatives and was thinking lamb. I was thinking wine. Since visiting France over the years, we still look for French wines to have with dinner, sometimes Italian and sometimes Spanish. We've never been to Spain but that's no reason to not try their wines, is it?

The wine I selected was a M. Chapoutier red -Chapoutier's wine labels are distinctive because of their inclusion of Braille writing on all labels since 1996.

Notice the Braille on the label.

From Wikipedia - naturally.....
The Chapoutier family can trace their history in the Rhône region back to 1808, but it was in 1879 that Polydor Chapoutier bought his first vineyards and started the actual business. In the mid-20th century Max Chapoutier led the business, until his retirement in 1977, after which his sons Michel Chapoutier and Marc Chapoutier took over. Some years later, during the 1980s, quality improved, under Michel Chapoutier's leadership over the vineyards and winemaking facilities. By the late 1980s, Chapoutier had started to receive considerable international attention for the wines' quality.
Chapoutier produces wines from a range of appellations in northern and southern Rhône, as well as from some Roussillon appellations, and from collaborative projects in Portugal and Australia.

I digress once again - we started with smoked trout.



Smoked trout from the supermarket is a local product.

SUE: This trout comes from the Goulburn River in Northern Victoria. A couple of hundred km from where we live, but for Australia, not that far. There is also a good selection  closer to home, but it just depends on what you see on the day. And on this day I bought from the supermarket and these looked great.:And then it was on to the preparation of our main course - It was my role as the apprentice to do the chop, chop stuff. 

Rack of lamb was our choice with rosemary and a red current glaze. Individual potato slices cooked in duck fat.
Add to the plate, spinach, garlic, pine nuts and why go out for dinner.



Sue sealed the racks first before putting in the oven.

I like to seal lemon halves in the pan with the meat and then chuck them in the oven and then serve them on the plate. They caramelise, you get a lot of juice and a heap of flavour. And they look great.

The finished result - Gee, it was scrumptious. What a lucky bloke I am.

Lamb always seems to me to be a very Australian dish. Individual racks of lamb are quite expensive in Australian terms for meat. I would never cook it for a family meal, but our older son moved out last week and our youngest was out for dinner, so....why not?  Two racks of 4 chops each cost slightly less than $AU20. That would be double what I would usually spend on meat for a family meat meal for 3 adult carnivores and me. Well worth it though.

To finish off, we enjoyed blue cheese and plum on crackers. Don't forget the biscotti.

We are in the middle of the stone fruit season here, and I really can't decide which sort I like the most.  The nectarines are always wonderful, I love poaching apricots, but at the moment it is the time for blood plums and they are fantastic. This is not counting the mangoes which are always wonderful. I have a tendency to over buy, and they don't last long in the heat...I have to do better with the shopping! There is only so much fruit you can eat!

That's a northern Victorian desert wine - a Buller's Tokay with an Nespresso.