I had a little dinner party this weekend that went pretty well – leg of lamb, roast potatoes, squash, rutabagas and a great apple, pear, cranberry crumble a guest brought.
The entire meal was shopped for, prepared, and plated in just under three hours. Several bottles of wine were involved as well. A Mondavi, a Kenwood and Fetzer Sauvignon blancs (drinking downward on the quality scale), and a big bottle of Concha y Toro Shiraz.
The lamb had a rubdown of rosemary and ginger, and was served with a sauce made with pan drippings, rosemary, ginger, papaya and cream. The squash was roasted fairly naked with some olive oil. An Irish friend prepared the rutabagas, or Swedes as he calls them, traditionally by boiling them and mashing them with butter and plenty of pepper. Except instead of mashing them into a mushy bashed state, we ran them through a ricer, twice, and got a fluffy consistency. Learn more about rutabaga history in this article on Turnip and their offspring. “Much confusion surrounded the origins, even the identity, of turnips and rutabagas, or “Swedes,” for a long time. They are distinctly different species.”