CoCo's Roasted Rack of Lamb

This dish has to be my crowning glory! I love rack of lamb, so this Christmas Eve I thought we cook something special and hubby suggested rack of lamb. I have never cooked it before, but how hard could it be right?

Seriously this was another one those dishes that seemed difficult, but it's NOT! OK the ingredients were a little expensive, this rack of lamb, which the butcher had already prepared by cutting away all the meat from the top of the bones, cost around S$38.00. But I guess for a special occasion, why not?

So anyway, very simple. I learnt all of these from daily tutelage from chefs around the world, gathered inside my television set. :)

1. Make sure the meat is at room temperature, take it out of the fridge early. Preheat oven to 200°C. Trim off some excess fat surrounding the meat. (Keep the fat*) Wrap the bones with tin foil to prevent burning.
2. Just before roasting, season the meat with a pinch of chopped sage, thyme, freshly ground pepper, salt and extra virgin olive oil.
3. Sear the meat on a hot frying pan to give the meat a nice brown colour.
4. Place the meat into the oven and lower the temperature to 180°C. Roast for 25 minutes.
5. Up the temperature to 200°C and roast for another 10 minutes. Take out the meat and cover it up with aluminium foil for at least 10 minutes before slicing it.

Serve with brown sauce and salad.

Brown sauce:
-Pour away some of the fat from the baking tray.
-Place the baking tray (only if your tray is stove top friendly - if not, scrape everything onto a frying pan) on top of the stove and add 2 tablespoon of flour.
-When everything is lumped up, add in some soup stock or water until gravy is formed and keep stirring until smooth. Flavour if necessary.

*FAT*
Cut the fat into small cubes and cook in frying pan with some cooking oil in very low heat. Slowly, the animal fat would be rendered, leaving behind a super flavourful oil and crazy crispy and delicious crackling.



As the fat has been released, the crackling is not too oily and very delicious. Kind of like the chinese 猪油渣. The remaining oil can be used to make super yummy roast potatoes. Just add boiled potatoes onto the cooled oil and roast them in the oven at high heat, 200°C, for about 20 minutes, turning occasionally. The result is something you can match at Macdonald's! Serious!

Bel Mondo - South Italian Cuisine

Accidentaly came across this Italian restaurant at Millenia Walk on the way to the PC show a few weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised! So we went back again with an appetite.

We started out with Italian beer. Interesting, we have never had Italian beer before, and it was quite nice! Very fruity, nice.



We ordered a bruschetta, which was absolutely delicious!



The bread was warm and crusty, the tomato topping was great. Even the little accompanying salad was filled with good stuff! It's got lettuce, rocket(my fav), parmesan cheese, little picked onions and sweet cheery tomatoes.

We wanted to test how authentic is this Italian restaurant, so we ordered Pomodoro pasta. We wondered how it would fair against the ones we had in Rome. :)



Unfortunately it didn't really make the mark. Well, it's unfair to compare with the unbelievably delicious pasta we had in Rome, but it's really not that bad. The sauce was a little too runny though...

OK, starters aside, here comes the main dishes. I ordered the rack of lamb.



It's quite good, the meat is nice and browned, so it's very flavourful. It's cooked to a nice medium done-ness, so it's still quite tender and moist. Love the salad and the potatoes too, I cleared my plate except for a few slices of pickles and some bitter purple lettuce. :P

Cobby ordered the pork belly, which was like a giant piece of 烧肉. The skin was delightfully crispy and the meat was quite tender!



By then we were really stuffed! But a hot cup of cuppacino really help to wrap up the while meal. :) We'll be back! And next time I'll try their pizza, which looked really good too... YUMS...



Millenia Walk, 9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-09/10, S(039596)