Recipe 32: Lamb Ragù with Mint (Giada de Laurentiis’ Giada’s Kitchen)
Who ever said that leftovers have to be boring!?!
I’m kind of surprised it took me this far into the year to get into a Giada recipe, but here we are. Aside from the cooking I learned at home with my mom, I need to credit Giada de Laurentiis for being the first person who “taught” me how to cook, first through her Everyday Italian, which I still cook from to this day from making a big batch of her basic Marinara Sauce (on its own or as a building-block for other great sauces or soups) to her perfectly moist and delicious Almond Cake (one of my favorites to bring to book club when it’s my turn to do dessert). Everyday Italian taught me how to put together simple, flavorful recipes that made the most of a few fresh ingredients and how to combine dishes to make amazing meals for family and friends. I have all her cookbooks and turn to them often when I entertain - seriously you need to try her Roasted Pork Loin with Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette and the wow-factor of her Espresso Caramel Bars cannot be overstated. And I’ll be the first to admit that aside from the dozens and dozens of amazing recipes Giada has brought into my home, I also get swept up in the aspirational aspects of her brand as she strides through the streets of Rome in a dress I want to own and her adorable daughter in tow. Or as she sips a rosé spritzer in a spacious sun-dappled California backyard with a perfect pashmina draped over her shoulders. Sigh. But I digress.
I looked to Giada this time around for a solution to some of the leftover lamb from last week’s Easter Feast. (Incidentally, the Four Hour Lamb recipe came from another food hero of mine, Ina Garten.) I love lamb and the slow-cooked six-pound leg came out perfectly succulent and was enjoyed by everyone around our table. I turned some of the leftover meat into gyros with a homemade tzatziki sauce (a great choice and we still have more lamb to do it again), but I was looking for some other options for other meals and came across Lamb Ragù with Mint from Giada’s Kitchen. I will admit to making a couple of tweaks, but it came out even better than I imagined!
SKILL RATING: Medium Effort
The effort can range here from like a high-easy to a low-medium depending on how involved you want to make this. You can go a very easy route and open up a jar of pasta sauce or put together a batch of Giada’s basic Marinara Sauce. I chose the latter option in this case. The sauce takes about an hour to simmer and cook down after sauteing the vegetables, but the ragù itself comes together very quickly. I chose to serve with rotini pasta because I had half and opened bag left, but almost any shape will do here or you could even serve it over rice or potatoes if you want. The portions here are quite generous. She lists it as being enough to serve 4-6, I cut the recipe in half and we have enough leftovers for another entire meal.
TASTE RATING: 5/5
This is something I could eat every day during cold-weather months, it’s meaty, filling, and extremely flavorful. As I mentioned, I made a couple of minor adjustments for my own preferences and to incorporate other techniques that aren’t in the recipe. First, I added about a teaspoon of red pepper flakes to the marinara when I sauteed the onions and garlic just to give the sauce a bit of heat. Second, the recipe calls for ground lamb and I used leftover cooked lamb leg. I’m sure it would be just as delicious with ground meat. To make the adjustment I chopped up the lamb into 2″ chunks and let it brown and crisp up a bit with the shallots, garlic, and olive oil. Once things were browned, I deglazed the pan with red wine (just as the recipe calls to do with the ground) before adding the cooked marinara sauce. Third, I reserved about a cup of starchy pasta cooking water to mix in with the rotini to keep things moist. I also mixed some of the mint leaves in with the ricotta and sprinkled in a bit of salt and pepper before putting a dollop on top of each serving. (I mostly did this for aesthetic purposes.) Anyway, this was great! We both loved how the delicate creamy ricotta and fresh hints of mint complimented the hearty robust flavors of lamb and red wine.
Cooking this was also a great reminder for me about why I love Giada’s recipes so much and how learning the basics can inspire creativity and flexibility in the kitchen. Do you have some leftover roast chicken or beef? Make it into ragù! Make a full batch of this and serve it over homemade noodles for an Italian feast! (Also . . . seriously . . . make the Espresso Caramel Bars. Thanks Giada!