Dinner leftovers usually just end up as my next-day lunch. I think it is not very appetizing to eat the same things for dinner two days in a row. With a little twist, however, leftovers can get a little beauty makeover. For example, I grilled several boneless chicken thighs marinated in a coconut milk-fish sauce-garlic-cilantro sauce for dinner one night. The leftover thighs ended up in an instant "ragu" in which I also added some cucumbers and canned tomatoes. I served this with plain omelets.
In the first picture, I grilled a butterflied leg of lamb, marinated in a herb yogurt sauce. The meat was sliced thin and served with a couscous salad (recipe from Ina Garten's book). The juice that accumulated around the meat during resting was the perfect sauce for it. The next night, I chopped up the rest of the lamb, and fried them up with a little oil, cumin, and black pepper. I also made a yogurt sauce by simply adding sliced cucumber, minced garlic and mint to greek yogurt. And voila, we had gyro and cousous. (Ok I know I just contradicted myself by eating the same couscous in two consecutive nights, but this couscous is soooo good!!)
We also made an appetizer to tie us over the hunger while grilling the lamb. It's just really good mazarella cheese, tomatoes, basil, and EVOO. Yum!
When I was making the gyro components, Mike made this cold cucumber and zuchinni soup from the Gourmet magazine. It tastes good, but I thought a little goes a long way. A small cup was more than enough.
During the day I also made a ginger and red plum granita from Martha's magazine. I really like the flavor, but Mike thinks it tastes like cough syrup. It's interesting that the flavor is nothing like a fresh plum. I think the skin, after cooking, contributed a very different flavor. And after the icy granita goes down the throat, the gingery hotness springs to life on the tongue. Very interesting!Recipe: Curried Couscous (from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Cookbook)
Note: Don't be turned off by the long list of ingredients. This recipe is really really easy and simple.
1.5 cup couscous
1 Tbsp butter
1.5 cup boiling water
1/4 cup yogurt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp tumeric
1.5 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup minced fresh flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup dried currants
1/4 cup blanched sliced almonds
2 scallions thinly sliced
1/4 cup small-diced red onion
1. Melt butter in the boiling water. Pour over couscous and cover for 5 minutes. Fluff couscous with a fork and set aside.
2. Mix yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry powder, tumeric, salt and pepper. (mixture may not look well emulsified, but that is ok) Pour this mixture into couscous and mix well with a fork.
3. Mix in all the remaining ingredients and serve a room temperature.
Comments
I was wondering where do you get your leg of lamb. There was this place in Portland where I got good cuts of lamb for reasonable prices, but I've yet to find such a place on the east coast. Do you go to a meat specialty store?
I actually got it at a normal supermarket called Steve's C-Town. It looks really ghetto from the outside because all of its windows are covered by these really ghetto looking sales posters. But it's quite clean inside, with a decent selection of produce and meat.