Sunday is Easter, and we’re having about 15 people over for an early dinner around 5:00. I asked if I could do the meat, potatoes and dessert. And rolls, of course—that goes without saying. Yes, I’m making dessert, a very special carrot cake with a custard-based cream-cheese frosting from the great Stella Parks over at Serious Eats. Remember, sweets are treats. They are for special occasions, and I’m dying to make her cake for our company dinner. (Stella’s recipe for whole-wheat bread was kind of a disaster and I don’t know why, but I’m willing to give this cake a try as it sounds so fabulous because of its use of browned butter instead of oil.) With as many people as we’re having most of the cake should get eaten up on the spot. I plan to make the recipe pretty much as written, although I’ll do some high-altitude adjustments following the King Arthur Flour chart , at least as much as I can do without driving myself crazy. So I’m writing about this recipe without having tested it yet, but I have high hopes. I’ve ordered some cake-insulating strips so that my layers will bake evenly without domed tops and they should be here by Friday.
The main course will be roast marinated butterflied leg of lamb; I hope that Costco has that cut. For the recipe I’m planning to pretty much follow the great Melissa Clark, although I don’t plan to buy fresh mint or marjoram/oregano, as any fresh herbs except for parsley and cilantro are very expensive. I do have a pot of fresh thyme and one that I think is chives, although it looks more like grass. (I tasted a sprig yesterday and wasn’t very impressed.) Also, I won’t be chopping all those herbs! I don’t know why Melissa is so allergic to the food processor. Her salsa verde calls for preserved lemons; I have a bunch of them in the fridge from this recipe, made back when Jim came home with a whole bag of lemons and I needed to do something with them. (Be sure you read the whole post; I followed her advice and left out the herbs and spices.) You don’t have to include them, and if you were to make the lamb for this weekend you wouldn’t have time anyway. As I’ve said before, I don’t bother with fresh lemon juice and so also don’t bother with zest; I use bottled juice and lemon oil.
For the potatoes I’m planning to use a recipe by yes, once again the great, Kenji Lopez-Alt, a method for making extra-crispy roast potatoes. I don’t plan to do the oil-infusion step, though. If I have the time and oven space, I want to roast some carrots and shallots too, but my mother-in-law is making a green-bean dish and so I don’t absolutely have to do the carrots. If I do make them I’ll just use baby carrots for convenience’ sake.
My timeline goes like this:
Friday, April 19—
Do all shopping, both at Costco and at King Soopers. I think I have my shopping lists completed as of now.
Saturday, April 20—
- Make cake and frosting, assemble completely. While the frosting does have eggs in it, Stella says that the frosting is fine for 2-3 days sitting at cool room temp: “The low-moisture/high-sugar custard is not particularly conducive to bacteria; the pH of the cream cheese helps too.” (I did have to scroll down through more than a page of comments to find this statement; I do wish that recipe authors would always include that kind of information up front.)
- Make herb/spice paste for lamb and rub into meat; cover with plastic wrap and aluminum foil to minimize the garlic fumes’ migration into every nook and cranny of the fridge.
- Set up table in dining room with chafing dish and warming tray.
Sunday, April 21—
No early-morning antics are needed here. After lunch I will:
- Make the rolls. I like to serve them fresh out of the oven, but that’s just not possible here.
- Prep the potatoes and (if doing) the carrots and shallots, get them into the oven by 3:45.
- Take lamb out of the fridge by 3:00; get meat into the oven by 4:00. Melissa says that the meat needs only 20-30 minutes, but I’m very skeptical about this roasting time as it seems far too short. She has you heat the oven to 450 degrees, and at least one of the comments on the recipe says that this is too hot. I plan to go with 425 and allow for 45 minutes plus 15-20 minutes’ resting time. We’re planning to eat around 5:00, but a few minutes later won’t hurt.
- Slice meat, put on platter, put potatoes and carrots/shallots in chafing dish.
My mother-in-law will be taking care of table setting and as mentioned is making green beans and a salad. I’m so glad to have her do that!
If you try any of these recipes, let me know how they turned out. I’ll be posting my own report next week.