2 recipes: Parmesan Fritters (P141) and Marinated and Grilled Lamb Cutlets with Hummus, Olive Oil and Coriander (P115)

Hwngo stayed over after a hectic, rainy weekend; he nominated these two recipes for Sunday supper. They're very different, but both perfect for a tired, wet night with a good bottle of wine (Rioja).

Luckily, I had a hectic weekend too, and looked at the recipes in the morning (second attempt at morning, after getting home partied-out at 5am) instead of later in the afternoon. Both of them need to be prepared in advance, and although it wasn't a great disaster, I did push the time envelopes a little; the lamb needed marinating for at least 12 hours (it got about 8) and the fritters to cool in the fridge for at least 4 hours (hurriedly shoved into the freezer for 2-3).

Fritters. Pretty darned easy: essentially an over-thick Roux with cheese etc thrown in. Neither of us (Hwngo and myself) can understand how a Roux can go wrong; there isn't much that moderating the heat and pressing the lumps out with a spoon won't fix, but it may just be that we've done it so long that we've forgotten what we're doing right. I wasn't sure how small to cut the mozarella, so I made it 1cm cubes. I worried that they were too big, but this worked okay; instead of mozarella throughout the fritters, there was a soft bite of it every so often which gave a little variety.
I don't have any small flat metal baking tins (another kitchen deficiency that I need to correct) so I put the mixture into my fluted pie dish and shoved the whole thing into the freezer to cool. When it came out circa 3 hours later, an inch wide swath of mixture around the edge was set, and the centre was still quite runny, so maybe several hours cooling would be a sensible idea. But I cut 1" squares out of it, flour-egg-breadcrumbs (Hwngo was interested to see how the flour stops the breadcrumbs from falling off) and into a pan filled with sunflower oil (to get the right heat). The result? When I first went to Prague, I found the city that I had always hoped Paris would be (but am always disappointed... well, not so much these days, but places and tastes change). When I bit into one of these fritters, I found the cheese-in-breadcrumbs that I always want deep-fried camembert to be (but am always disappointed). And deep-fried parsley is just one of those small wonders of nature; it shouldn't happen, it shouldn't work, but it does. Yummily. We both agreed that this was excellent grown-up party food; now all I have to do is move to the city, change my life and start throwing dinner parties again. Which is really quite an excellent idea. Hwngo pointed out that I'd forgotten the lemon wedges, but we were both hungry and the fritters so lovely that I don't think they would have added a huge amount to the experience. It's better than Dutch cuisine anyways (although Indonesian can be pretty good in the Netherlands).

Lamb cutlets. Another round of finding things in a big supermarket (I'd meant to go to the organic butchers but ran out of time on Saturday, and they're -sensibly- closed on Sunday) ; got the very last jar of tahini, so big points there, spent a while hunting down the Tabasco (had forgotten it was in little bottles), and bought a fuse for the Magimix. Marinade was easy: mix, pour and shove to one side. Hummus was a little more tricky; Magimix still refuses to start (it will have to go back to its makers) and my original machine did not much more than sit on the side and whine at how many beans I was asking it to mush (it went straight onto the recycling pile). There wasn't a lot more too it really, apart from cooking the cutlets for longer than I'd normally expect, to get them nicely charred (Hwngo saved my bacon - erm lamb- there) and making the result look pretty on a place. We served them with coriander, cayenne and baby plum tomatoes (I have a great weakness for good hummus mixed with flavoursome tomatoes). It was very much a dish with North African style without actually being North African; it balanced well, and would be suitable for a more intimate party (say, a 4-person dinner party with a salad-based starter and healthy dessert) than the fritters. Another competent dish, and all the better for it; something that could be enjoyed with friends but that wouldn't badly alienate the mother-in-law. And then we flumped in a corner because even we didn't have room for any dessert.