Monday Recipe: Rack of lamb
This meal was actually cooked (and eaten) last week along and preceeded the Apple and Pear pie. But knowing that this weekend would be a quiet one for the kitchen I thought to save it.
I bought a rack of lamb with 7 chops on it. It was meant to be 4 which would be enough for 2 people but 7 was the smallest they would do so I went with that. And I ended up being very grateful for it. I could have eaten this again.
First I put some potatoes in to par-boil. That meant chopping them into two inch cubes (they aren’t really cubes of course because potatoes aren’t square and I’m not about to go wasting good food). Drop them into boiling water and leave for 10 minutes.
In the meantime warm the oven (200C) and place a tray with some vegetable oil in there to heat up.
After your potatoes have par-boiled, drain, sprinkle with plenty of thyme and salt. Then pour the hot oil over them and give it all a good shake before returning the mix to tray and slamming in the oven for about an hour.
That’s the tough part over with.
Put your carrots on to cook – I can’t give you a time for this because it’s a personal thing. I like them mashed and so reasonably soft.
Get some green beans read to cook (these take 5 minutes so leave until the meat is out).
Prepare your lamb. Make a breadcrumb mixture from stale bread, garlic, salt, thyme, sage and rosemary. Coat your lamb with mustard and then roll it in the mixture. Place the rack in a frying pan and “seal” all over. Then put the rack into the oven. Timings again depend on preference. I had mine in for 30 minutes but it wasn’t cooked to my wife’s satisfaction so I ended up carving it, putting it back in the frying pan and finishing it all off with a blow torch for speed. The blow torch was a great way (and a tip that came from Carl) of rendering the fat down to a nice crispy finish so I’m glad I did that.
For the sauce I reduced about 100ml of balsamic down to a thick consistency and then added a beef stock cube, some thyme, 200ml of boiling water, some worcester sauce and some pepper. I reduced that down to a thick(ish) sauce and added some butter right at the end. No idea why, everyone seems to do it on the telly though.
And that’s about it. The sauce was the secret but the lamb still shone through and tasted great.
I know it’s only 10 O’Clock in the morning but I want to eat this immediately.