By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to serve this lamb rack. It's delicious, your guests will be impressed, and it's actually really easy!
For those of us casual home cooks, I think what bums us a lot is pulling off a random recipe on the web, following the instructions to a Tee, and then realizing that the result is rubbish. No worries with this recipe we're about to give you, though! It's satisfaction guaranteed, or ... uh, or you're welcome to leave a nasty comment which we promise we won't delete :)
So anyways, we start off with a lamb rack. Actually scratch that - we start off by pre-heating the oven to 205degrees C, then we turn our attentions to the lamb rack! I'm not sure how much this particular rack
weighs, but it seems very much like a standard-sized, 8-rib rack.
Next, what you want to do is to grab a knife and trim off most of the fat around the bones. While a bit of fat in any meat is good, you don't want to have too much of it. Don't worry about being neat at this stage either.
Before we brown the meat we're going to season it
liberally with salt and pepper, and a little Italian Herb mix. If you're just starting out in your cooking exploration, here's a small secret: When a cook says "a pinch of salt," the amount he/she has in mind is about two or three times more than what you're thinking - so don't worry about adding a little more salt and pepper.
Heat some olive oil or vegetable oil in a pan, let it get hot, and then sear the rack for about a minute or so - to get a nice firm cooked "crust" on the outside. Not to lock in the juices, though - there's plenty of articles on the web that claim "searing meat locks in all the juices" is
actually false ...
Once the sear is done, we can move on to mixing up the wonderful pistachio crust. We need just 4 ingredients - chopped roasted pistachios (don't chop them too fine) and breadcrumbs (we used Japanese breadcrumbs) in about a 2:1 ratio, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter & extra virgin olive oil to hold everything together.
The pistachio-breadcrumb mix won't stick to the lamb rack on its' own, though, so you'll have to "stick" it on using Mustard - we used a Fine Wholegrain Mustard, but if you want a stronger flavour you could also use Dijon Mustard. Just spread the mustard all over the meat like you would spread icing on a cake, and it'll hold the pistachio-breadcrumb crust during the cooking process.
Your oven should be thoroughly pre-heated by now, so pop the rack right in. If you've got a meat thermometer, you're looking at about 65deg C internal temperature for medium rare; if you don't have a meat thermometer unfortunately you're going to have to wing it. 20-21 minutes should be just about right for Medium Rare.
When time's up let your lamb rack rest on a chopping board for a couple of minutes to let the juices settle ...
... and then carve! 4 ribs should feed a person of average appetite.
We served our lamb rack with some
goose fat potatoes and some salad.
Result:
Awesome!!. The lamb turned out a pink medium-rare; and contrasted wonderfully with the tanginess of the mustard and nutty crunch from the pistachios & breadcrumbs. The beauty of this recipe is that, as you've seen above, it
is really quite straightforward and easy to prepare - but your guests will think you slaved away at it all afternoon!
So go ahead and give it a try, and leave us a comment to tell us how it went!
