Another lamb night

Lately, I’ve been trying to do some stuff with lamb.  I’ve never been a huge fan of it, but I know the DH loves it.  It all boils down to being bored with chicken and beef.  We eat a lot of both, as it’s the easiest to do stuff with.  You can grill it, fry it, bake it, broil it and usually it’s all good.  He’s not a big fish fan, and while I love fish like salmon and tuna, I’m not as keen on cod or other mild white fish so we tend not to eat a lot of fish.  For me, shrimp belongs in a shrimp cocktail and little else.   So finding new meats and new tastes are right now key to keeping me interested in cooking and not getting too down about having CD. 

Which brings me to lamb.

I’ve been playing around with it a bit, starting with that French Provence lamb slow cooker dish I did a few weeks ago.  It was really good, but I wanted to try something else.  I found this minted lamb recipe and wanted to try it.  Thursday night I pull the meat down from the freezer to have it ready for Friday.  Friday night I’m all ready to cook it and guess what?  It needs to marinate for at least four hours!!  Now what?  I look closely at the list of ingredients for the marinade.  I could do a dry rub with part of it then the liquids could be made into a sauce and reduced a bit.  Cool, let’s get started.  Hmm.  The 8 bits of lamb I thought I had?  Try 4 big pieces.   Oops.  Ok, no biggie, two skillets should do the trick and just split the sauce between both.  Except one of my skillets is steel and the other is hard anodized aluminum.  It was a bit tense trying to watch both, as they were wanting to cook at different rates, and one was smoking (First time I set off the heat/smoke detector in a while.) and while all this is going on, I’m trying to roast up some carrots to go with it.  As frantic as it all looked, it came together well.  I can definitely see doing this again, and I’d probably do it the same way, except I’d get a chunk of bobneless lamb and cut it up.

Minted Lamb Chops

8 lamb rib chops with bone, cut 1” thick

1/4 cup snipped fresh mint

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons worth)

2 Tbsp cooking oil

2 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger


1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 to 1 tsp bottled mince garlic or 1-2 cloves fresh

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1-2 Tbsp finely shreddded mint

Trim fat from chops.  Place chops in resealable plastic bag or in a shallow dish.  For the marinade place all the ingredients except the finely shredded mint into a bowl and mix.  Pour over chops. Seal the bag, if using.  Turn the chops to coat. Cover if in a dish.  marinate at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours, turning occasionally.

Drain chops, discarding the marinade.  Place chops on a grill or in broiler 3-4 inches from the heat.  Grill or broil til desired doneness, turning once halfway through cooking.  Aloow 12 minutes or so for medium-rare and 15 or so for medium.

If using the skillet method, heat pan over medium high heat.  Add a bit of oil.  When the oils starts showing the first wisps of smoke, add the chops.  Wait for several minutes, oil the side facing upwards, then flip, letting them sear.  Cook until desired doneness.

Transfer chops to a serving platter and sprinkle with shredded mint.