Chef Interrupted Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make At Home

The sheer culinary adventure of cooking a sublime dish from a top chef's cookbook can be an exhilarating challenge. Often, though, right around the point where you're faced with reducing a single component of one sauce for two hours, you begin to wonder if the challenge is just a bit too daunting. What's a home cook without a staff of sous-chefs to do? Chef, Interrupted supplies an inspiring answer. Award-winning food journalist, cookbook author, and emerging food personality Melissa Clark takes complicated chef's recipes and whittles them down to the basicsmiraculously, without sacrificing any flavor. These wonderful dishespastas like Eric Ripert's Spicy Linguine with Sauteed Baby Squid and Chorizo, vegetables such as Jimmy Bradley's Quick Saute of Zucchini with Toasted Almonds and Pecorino, and fish including Wylie Dufresne's Halibut with Smoked Mashed Potatoes and Red Peppertransform mere ambition into real food on your table, with more success than you would have thought possible. This recipe below for Tagine of Lamb Shanks with Prunes, Ginger, and Toasted Almonds inspired by Chef Andrew Carmellini of Cafe Boulud will begin your tour of some of the world's best restaurants from the comfort of your own kitchen. Tagine of Lamb Shanks with Prunes, Ginger, and Toasted Almonds Unlike the happily and decidedly French restaurant Daniel, where chef Daniel Boulud serves his take on the classics, Cafe Boulud, his more casual restaurant uptown, espouses a more global perspective. Former executive chef Andrew Carmellini used ingredients and techniques from around the world, which he melded with Daniel's refined European sensibility. For instance, in this tagine, Andrew uses a cross-cultural mix of Middle Eastern and North African seasonings, from herbaceous zahtar to sesame seeds and almonds, as well as the subtle, intriguing flavor of Earl Grey tea. He serves it with a rather French garnish of caramelized artichokes with carrots and onion, but it's not essential to the dish. However if you feel like making it, it is fitting and delightful, so I've included it in a sidebar. Preparation Time: 1 hour and 20 minutes, plus 2 to 2-12 hours braising Serves 4 Spice Mix 1-12 teaspoons Jordanian zahtar (see Melissa's Tips) 1 teaspoon ras al hanout (see Melissa's Tips) 1 teaspoon hot paprika 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper 12 teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt Lamb Shanks 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 4 lamb hind shanks (about 3 pounds total) 1 onion, coarsely chopped 1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped 5 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole One 2-inch piece of fresh gingerroot, peeled and sliced Coarse sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1 large tomato, diced 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 3 cups unsalted veal or lamb broth, or low-sodium beef broth 2 sprigs of fresh thyme 2 Earl Grey tea bags 8 dates, pitted Garnish 24 pitted prunes 2 tablespoons golden raisins 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted (see Melissa's Tips) 2 tablespoons toasted sliced almonds Caramelized artichokes (optional) Caramelized Artichokes (optionalserves 4) 3 tabClark, Melissa is the author of 'Chef Interrupted Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make At Home', published 2005 under ISBN 9781400054404 and ISBN 1400054400.