I'll post the original recipe I was following later, but first, before my mortified mind purges this memory from my brain, here are my learnings:
- When purchasing meat that is on the bone (in this case, lamb shoulder chop), you are going to need more poundage than you would think.
- A broiler is the thing that's underneat the oven. No, it's not a drawer. It cooks things.
- Don't put anything that nears 1inch in thickness in the broiler for more than 10 minutes, because it will probably catch on fire.
- Don't put whole chunks of garlic on top of the thing that you are broiling, because those will probably catch on fire too.
- When something catches on fire, it may very well be salvagable! In this case, I removed from broiler and threw it in the oven to bake and it ended up being pretty damn yummy if not a bit on the crispy side.
- A lesson in Kale -- that thick stem in the middle of the two leaves? You don't eat that. You have to cut that out. Fold the leaves over on themselves with the stem on one side and cut that baby away.
- A word on sauting crushed garlic -- you don't JUST crush and leave it in a smushed sphere. You crush, and then I think you have to like separate it all and stuff. This one I am still unsure about.
I found myself learning all of these things simultaneously last night -- lamb chop on fire, kale's sooo done and boiling away (and %$&@ I don't have a freaking COLLANDER!), garlic looks totally ridiculous in its smushed shape and brown, in the same 4 seconds.
Sooo about that optimism and steadfastness...yeah those melted away, almost as fast as that lamb chop became engulfed in flames after placing in broiler.
Fortunately, wonderful boyfriend was there to remind me that THIS is how you learn how to cook! Duh! I made a bunch of mistakes, and I did in fact leave this meal still ravenous, but I learned a lot of things (see aforementioned learnings in bulleted list form above).
