Baa Baa
Published by Carolin on Tagged Dinner, Lamb, marinade
I’ve mentioned in a previous blog that I live in an area of Canada that is called beef country. If you haven’t guessed where I live it is in the province of Alberta and we are well known for our beef. Which I truly love. But we are also known for our Lamb. Alberta has some of the best lamb in the world. I can still remember the first time I ever ate lamb. I was still dating my husband (Kevin) and he took me to a nice romantic restaurant and I ordered rack of lamb. Now the waiter politely asked me if I wanted mint sauce. The waiter also had quite a heavy accent and I did not quite understand him. Instead of saying “excuse me I don’t understand” I just in turn replied No thank-you. My loving not yet husband waits until the waiter leaves and says to me “you don’t want mint sauce”. Now I have never had lamb in my life and my boyfriend had grown up on it. So you would have thought he might have said something before the waiter left. So I had to call over the waiter and politely say to him “oh, yes I would like mint sauce”. I am pretty sure he thought I was a bit strange to say the least. Well that rack of lamb was served to me along with the mint sauce and it literally melted in my mouth.
Well I have been very fortunate to cook and enjoy a lot of lamb since that day some 24 years ago. There are so many different ways to cook lamb. I really don’t know of to many countries that do not include it in their diet.
There is also the controversy of what temperature to cook lamb to. The Greek people like it well done. The French like it medium rare. The way I feel about the whole situation is have it how you like it. Unless of course you are in a particular country then enjoy it like they do.
Now one of my favorite cuts is the lamb loin chop. It is great tasting and very easy to work with. The way I like to prepare this cut is with a marinade that I actually let the lamb sit in for 24 hours. I have on occasion only marinated it for a couple of hours and it tasted good, but I prefer over night. You can also use this marinade for a leg of lamb as well and it is equally as good. The reason I prefer the chop is I can cook as many as I need and not have a lot of leftovers.
This recipe is another one of Carolin classic’s, meaning the measurements are approximate. This is enough marinade for at least 12 chops.
Garlic and Rosemary Marinade
¾ cup Olive Oil
2-3 Lemons Juiced
6-8 Garlic cloves chopped
2-3 sprigs of fresh Rosemary (Remove rosemary from stem and roughly chop)
Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Place lamb and marinade in a zip lock bag. Lay in a dish. Marinade in the fridge over night.
You can cook this a couple of ways. I prefer it done on the barbeque (less messy). Or you can heat up a pan on quite high heat until it is almost smoking (this will make your smoke detectors go off) cover the bottom of pan with olive oil and then brown the lamb on both sides. After lamb is browned. Place pan in a 400°F oven and roast for about 8-10 minutes, for medium rare.
I prefer this cut medium rare.
Serve this with some garlic roast potatoes or some garlic-mashed potatoes. A nice Greek salad and your tummy will be thanking you.
TIP OF THE DAY
Next time you come home from grocery shopping and you have a load of chicken, beef or pork. Portion it out how you like it and place it in zip lock bags with your favorite marinades and freeze it this way. Do Not use a marinade with a high quantity of salt (i.e. Soya sauce). Also don’t do this with fish. Fish is way to delicate to handle this. I do this trick a lot in the summer for barbeque season.
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