Lamb and Cheese Pie
by Mady Lee
Memorandum: an experimental lamb and cheese pie, based on Mandy Lee’s fascinating and experimental book on The Art of Escapsism Cooking. Changes:
- Lee uses an asian hot-water crust. I’ve had some bad luck with these; I used Ruhlman’s 312 biscuit dough. That might have been too bready, but it was fine.
- Lee used ground lamb, uncooked. I had a pound of leftover sous vide leg. I was worried it would be dry: it wasn’t.
- Lee used 10 shallots(!); I just used a medium onion.
- Lee used 10oz of gouda, but I didn't have fresh gouda and I don't think she was thinking of aged gouda. I had some Oaxacan cheese that needed to be used; I used 5oz.
All these worked well. I was a very nice dinner. One thing that worked less well:
- I happened to have 2T of chili powder and cumin mixture, left over from some Xi’an lamb skewers, and I used it to make the chili oil. Ground chilis really lost potency in the open air. This surprises me because, after all, they sit on the shelf in a bag. But clearly those volatile oils recondense in the bag but not in the kitchen.