New Phone - Lamb Braise, Old Phone - Pork Braise

I got a new phone the other day, its got a great camera.  I hate the phone, but the camera is great.  Here is a lamb shoulder braise headed to the oven.  I love braising lamb like this.  No pre searing, no sauteing the vegetables, you just have to heat the lamb stock and white wine and lightly oil the meat surface before heading to the 350 degree oven.  Once the top browns, the meat gets rotated, brown side into liquid, and the process repeats itself until the meat is tender, but not fall apart tender like beef short ribs or pork carnitas.  Reduce the braising liquid a bit and it is perfect with some creamy polenta, and roasted winter vegetables. 

 Here is our pork braise headed to the oven.  We put tin foil over the tops of these and don't uncover them until the final 30 minutes of cooking.  This ends up shredded and on our pulled pork torta at the sandwich shop.  The key is the salt, 1 Tbs per 5 lbs pork shoulder.  And then the chilis, onions, and garlic.  We use guajillos, pasilla, new mexico, and japonese.  Look at the photo difference.  Its all tinny and washed out. 

Dinner with the family.  Papparadelle, mild italian sausage, spinach, garlic, chili flakes, extra virgin olive oil, chicken stock, parmesan. 

Cheers

Mayonnaise Week

Every so often we like to do fun things at the sandwich shop.  We had a "put our phone number in your phone and get a 10% discount or free brownie or free drink" Week.  We had a Latronka eating contest and a "pastrami" Week.  We had a "happy birthday to us" Week.  We just finished up Mayonnaise Week, a celebration of all things good about the creamy loveliness that is Mayo. 

You can find out about these fun and exciting things by joining our e-mail list.  It's easy, send us an e-mail asking us to join and we will let you.  No expensive initiation fees, no credit checks... its easy, its fun (kinda).

 

Here is our son drawing the winners for Mayonnaise Week, from the super special Mayonnaise Week Mayo Tub.  And below is the e-mail we sent out to all those e-mail list people.

Greetings Sandwich People,

We try to do things right at Graze ("right" being a highly subjective idea that we tend to always put ourselves on the correct side of the "right/wrong" continuum).

Mayonnaise, or Mayo for short, is one of those things that always makes us question just how "right" we are.

Consider the following "rightness" scale I have in my head regarding this French classic, descending from most right to least right.
- hand whisked, using fresh peeled garlic and local organic eggs, pure olive oil, lemon, kosher salt
- food processor, peeled garlic, fresh eggs, pure olive oil, lemon, kosher salt
- food processor, peeled garlic, fresh eggs, canola oil, lemon, kosher salt
- best foods mayo (hellman's for you east coasters)
- food processor mayo, jarred mashed garlic (this stuff is toxic, ruins most everything), fresh eggs, lemon, kosher salt
- assorted mayo brands
- heavy duty five gallon bucket industrial strength generic mayo


Now as much as we would like to make mayo for our sandwiches and sauces daily... it just is not practical. And as safe as it is to make mayo from egg yolks, this risk/reward ratio on our part is much to high, and the health department would flip out and make us put warning labels all over the sandwich shop.

So we choose to use Best Foods as our only mayo. But here is the deal. Five gallons of Best Foods Mayo costs us $62.50. Any idea how much the generic industrial heavy duty stuff sells for.... $32. Yep, we are idiots. But without Best Foods our basil mayo would be lackluster, our russian dressing would suffer, our chipolte mayo would be bland, the caesar dressing would taste greasy.

Best Foods is so good, so fantastic, so that much better than the alternative, so as close as you can get to a house made mayo without the tiny health risk while being incredibly non-perishable, that we are going to celebrate it the only way we know how. This entire week at Graze is Mayonnaise Week!!!!

Here is how it works. Come in. Order. Then say "Bring Out the Best". For every sandwich you order you get to place your name in... wait for it.... wait for it... the Best Foods Mayo Gallon Tub. And we will hold a drawing at the end of the week and award the lucky winners their choice of a Graze T-shirt or a Graze Handbag. Three winners this glorious glorious Mayonnaise Week.


Cheers