Monday, January 22, 2007

An Adventure in Lamb Chops

Sunday is "good eating karma" day. No matter what I seem to do, it always turns out delicious and I have the best meal of the week Sunday night, often a little late.
This time, I decided to thaw out the two lamb chops I had in the fridge. It's been a while since I've had lamb, and I have a long history of looking for it in stores and not finding it. I set out the lamb in the afternoon, and when I started getting peckish around 7:30, I looked for recipes and selected two to blend from a Greek cookbook I have. The lamb, it transpires, was perfectly thawed; the meat was red and soft, and looked fresh (I purchased it at Kroger...I don't often get meat there, but it paid off this time). Here's what I used:
Rosemary
Oregano
Thyme
crushed into a dish; I put two Tbsp. of butter over it and stuck it in the microwave to melt the butter over the spices, then added a few squirts of lemon juice.
I salted and peppered the meat, then basted the chops with the above deliciousness, and put them under the broiler in an unslotted broiling pan. After 3 minutes, I basted again. At seven minutes, I flipped the chops, basted some more...
then received a shock. It seriously sounded like my oven was going to explode...I'm pretty sure there was an inferno of flame in there. I turned off the oven for a minute while I tried to figure out what had happened. The truth is, I have no idea. I did discover, however, that my cookbook, propped open on top of the stove, which was off, was singed and probably about to burst into flame itself. Removed that, restarted the oven/broiler, and everything transpired normally. Rebasted the meat at the next 3 minute mark.
Meanwhile, I sliced a frozen section of formerly fresh sourdough baguette in half and drizzled olive oil over it, put it on a rack, and put it in the oven. At six minutes, I removed the chops and the bread. The bread had a few dark edges, and I didn't hold out much hope since it had been frozen, but then something amazing happened: The bread was perfectly toasted on the outside and soft in the middle. Huh what? PERFECT bread.
I was scared about the chops; I have a tendency to overcook meat, and as I looked at one of the chops (which had curled), it looked a little bit dry. When I cut into it, the cut was a little difficult in spots. The chops had been a little thin, and probably could have used less time. However, the second miraculous thing happened--it turns out the meat, which had a perfect arrangement of fat, was not only juicy, but tasted absolutely delicious with the herbs, butter, and lemon. I haven't made meat that good in months.
So, I ate a lamb chop and some bread, with some mozzarella slices, olives stuffed with feta (thanks to my bro-in-law), a salad, and milk. It was such a nice change from all the junk I've been eating lately out of exhaustion and cravings.
Edited to add: I forgot to mention that part of my basting ingredients were chopped green onions...my bag of onions was looking like it was ready to go off, so I chopped the rest up and put them in the freezer. Consequently, I cried for about two hours.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds yummy! I used to not be into lamb, but Poco Piatti's changed all that, so maybe I need to add this to the list of stuff I want to try to cook.

Cutting onions never really bothers me, but I've read if you stick them in the freezer before you chop them, it's supposed to cut down on the amount it irritates eyes. I don't know if that works, but maybe keep it in mind for next time.

Abs said...

Thanks, I might try that; I don't keep onions on hand very much because I just use dried onions, but I needed scallions for something and got too many. I'm very sensitive to onions, so the freezer trick might work.