Lamb is one of those foods that instantly reminds me of Greece. I know a lot of people that eat lamb with mint sauce. If you are one of those people, I won’t hold it against you. But I will show how I think lamb is supposed to be eaten…with lots of garlic, threebee
and lemon. To be honest, I didn’t even know what mint sauce was until I met my husband. His dad is English, and that’s how the Brits eat lamb. I did try mint sauce once, and it’s not my thing, so let me tell you how I make lamb.
I bought a beautiful rack of lamb at Costco. It’s imported from Australia, and although it’s a little on the pricey side, it’s well worth every penny. When I splurge on items like steaks, lambs and my personal favorite, king crab legs, I always seem to justify it by thinking about what I would spend if I went out to dinner and ordered that at a restaurant.
So say a rack of lamb at costco is $25, you could easily spend twice that for lamb chops in a nice restaurant. When you think how much money you can spend in a restaurant on a nice entrée, salads and wine, the option of staying at home and cooking up the same thing at half the cost becomes much more appealing. Anyways, enough about that…
I started by peeling and cutting potatoes in wedges. Then, I added some chicken stock, lemon juice, olive oil fresh rosemary and pepper to them. I roasted them covered for about 25 minutes at 350, then uncovered for about 10 minutes to brown them up and absorb most of the moisture.
I seasoned the lamb with salt, pepper, a healthy smearing of EVOO, garlic and threebe. What is threebe you might ask? Threebe is a greek herb that is native to island of Kalymnos. It grows wild on the mountains, and is similar in taste to oregano. I use it on everything from salads to meats to soups. In regards to the garlic, The way that I use it in the lamb is a technique that I learned from my dad. He would take whole cloves of peeled garlic, create a small slit in the lamb, and tuck the clove inside the meat. I did this with about 10 cloves of garlic. Then, I heated up my pan with a little bit of EVOO in it, and placed the lamb in it so it would get a nice brown crust. I know a lot of people like to do pistachio-crusted lamb, or herb crusted lamb, but when it comes to how I prepare lamb I take a more purist approach. While it was sizzling in the pan and smelling delicious, I juiced ½ of a lemon over it. After I had a nice carmelazation on the meat going on, I flipped it over and did the same to the other side. Once both sides had browned nicely, I transferred the rack to a roasting pan and cooked it for about 40 minutes. I was surprised that it took that long, but once it was finished it was cooked perfectly. I don’t like lamb too rare, just a hint of pink is how I like it.
I also roasted up some asparagus with EVOO salt and pepper. The great thing about this meal is that it’s very simple, but it looks like something you would of spent all day on. Lamb is one of those meats that seems fancy, when really all you did is sear it and stick it in the oven.
I can’t remember the exact name of the wine that we had with it, but it was an Italian red. We seem to be enjoying those lately and it’s been a nice diversion from our normal pinots.
Cheers and Happy Cooking!
Rosie
