Catching Up: Meat and Potatoes, but Classy

I just got back from a four-month stint living and doing dissertation field research in West Papua, Indonesia. (See Climbing Volcanoes to read about that.) The food in Indonesia is wonderful, full of spices, chiles, coconut milk, tofu, tempe, and deep-fried bananas. What it is not is varied, and while I absolutely love my landlady's young jackfruit curry, by the time December came around I was seriously jonesing for some bread, prosciutto, red wine, and real cheese. White rice is good, white rice three meals a day gets old. So when I got home one of the foremost things on my mind was to catch up with all the old delicious things that I'd missed, and one of those things was lamb chops. Rare, seared, salty, tender lamb chops like the ones I got in New Zealand, with a side of green beans and oniony potatoes. For one thing, lamb costs rather a bit more here than it did in Auckland and isn't quite so fresh either, but I got a decent package of loin chops from the co-op here. The potatoes are adapted from a recipe I got from Saveur a while back, but with olive oil instead of duck fat because even I have limits I couldn't find duck fat on short notice. (The original, amazing but slightly pickier recipe is here.) The beans are an old family favorite. Altogether my kitchen smelled amazing and it made me happy to be back in the US, despite the January weather. The hot showers helped too, but there's definitely something to be said for the lamb.

Lamb chops wit the works.

Lamb Chops
This isn't even a recipe; I don't know why I'm even writing it down except that it would be odd to post about a lamb dinner and not put in instructions for the lamb. So here goes.

Set lamb loin chops on a plate; generously salt & pepper both sides. Let sit for a few minutes.
Put a little olive oil in a cast iron skillet and let it get really hot. Add the lamb, and let each side cook til it's brown and crusty. Cover for a slightly less rare chop. In any case it'll be pink in the middle and delicious. Hold the edges onto the pan and let them brown too. Let rest for 10 minutes, then enjoy.

Potato-Onion Galette
Waxy potatoes
Half as many onions, sweet ones work well.
Caraway seeds or chopped sage leaves
Olive oil, butter, duck fat, or some combination of the above.
Salt & pepper
Bacon or prosciutto (optional)

Preheat oven to 425. Slice the potatoes thin (it's easiest with a mandoline); put in a large bowl. Slice the onions equally thin; add to the same bowl. Add an handful of chopped sage leaves or caraway seeds, plus S&P to taste. Finely chopped bits of crispy bacon or prosciutto are good too, added either now or as a garnish at the end. Toss everything until well-mixed. Add a healthy amount of olive oil, melted butter, or whatever fat you're using and toss to coat. Put the mixture in a pyrex baking dish and bake 45 minutes to an hour, until potatoes are tender and everything's nice and brown.

Lemon-Garlic String Beans
String beans, washed
Garlic
Lemon juice
S&P
Oil
1/4 cup broth

Slice the end off of the string beans and cut them into reasonable lengths. Heat some olive oil in a pan on medium -high heat. Add the beans, and let them cook, stirring, til they turn bright green. Turn the heat down and add the garlic, stirring so it doesn't burn. Cook a minute or two, then add a large-ish splash of broth. Cover and cook for a few more minutes, not so long that the beans lose all their crunch. Take the top off so the broth evaporates. Add a few squeezes of lemon juice and s&p to taste.