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Lamb usually a holiday dish, gracing Easter tables for decades. But this recipe is fairly easy. If you felt like a weeknight treat, this is the way to go!

TLDR

• Marinate the lamb overnight in some chopped lemon, mint, cardamom, and garlic
• Scrape off the marinade and sear the lamb on all sides
• Create a pesto mixture of mint, pistachios, grated cheese, oil, and cardamom
• Smear the crust all over the lamb in a thick coating.
• Roast in 375°F oven for 25 minutes.
• Let rest. Carve.
• Eat.

Jump to Recipe

How Much Lamb to Buy?

Lamb chops are pretty small. Not as small as goat chops, but still, pretty darn small. You’re not going for a full hunk of pork here. One little lamb chop won’t cut it if that’s your main course.

I usually estimate about two lamb chops per person, especially if you are serving a hearty side dish like roasted vegetables or some sort of rice or pasta.

Since it was just Vasiliy and I, we asked our butcher to cut a half-rack of lamb (two chops for each of us.) You may want to get more if you’re feeding more than two. Of course, the more you buy, the more expensive it will be. So plan to spend a bit on this recipe! I tend to save it for holidays or a real treat.

If you’re cooking two half racks (cut) or two whole racks, you can roast them simultaneously. Simply rest the frenched bones between each other so you create a sort of comb with all the bones. It’s an incredibly elegant presentation and a perfect table centerpiece.

What is “Frenched” Lamb?

Since I mentioned Frenching above, I ought to explain. The beautiful lamb chop you are familiar with is a small portion of meat at the end of a perfectly cleaned bone. But obviously a fresh lamb rack won’t have completely stripped bones. Rib bones in an animal are connected by a variety of tissues to help them expand and protect the organs underneath. 

Frenching is the process of stripping the rib bones of that meat, fat, and ligaments connecting them. This makes for a very traditional and elegant presentation, though if you chose not to french your lamb, you could still cook a delicious rack.

If you want your lamb rack frenched but aren’t sure how to do it, ask your butcher to french them for you.

Prepare Marinades Ahead

Lamb is a very tender and moist meat, which is why it’s so prized. So you don’t really need to do too much preparation. However, if you are really keen on a specific flavor, you might want to create a marinade to season your meat before cooking. Marinades can take anywhere from a few hours to overnight to sink in. While they are optional, I always opt for one if I’m trying to impress.

(But even if you decide not to marinade, you’ll want to make your crust a little ahead of cooking time. This allows the flavors to mingle together for a more unified taste. I compiled all my ingredients and mixed the crust pesto up about 30 minutes early and allowed it to sit.)

The marinade is a totally non essential step. I just wanted as much of the minty flavor to sink into the meat as possible. It’s the end of summer, after all. So this might be the last time for a bit that I get to play with mint! I wanted as much as I could get in this recipe.

When it was time to cook, I scraped off the marinade, set it aside, and seared the lamb rack over the stove.

Why sear before roasting?

Searing involves using very high, hot heat to quickly cook the surface of a meat until a crust forms. It’s a very simple method. You just need a stove, a pan, and a bit of oil to keep things from sticking. Raise your stove to medium-high heat, allow the fat to melt in the pan, and place your meat into the pan for about 2-3 minutes each side. In the end you’ll have raw meat in the center, but a nice warm brown crust on the exterior. Why would we do this? 

Searing meat is a technique to increase your chances of keeping your meat moist after it cooks. If you pop cold, raw meat into an oven, the heat slowly draws the moisture out of interior and allows it to escape as it cooks. Result? Dry meat.

But once you’ve created a seared crust on the exterior, the moisture of the interior has been sealed in before it had the chance to escape. Now you can slowly roast your meat, allowing it to cook fully, but without losing all its precious moisture to the oven. (Plus a brown crispy seared crust tastes so delicious.)

I always sear meat before roasting. (And it’s a good technique to use on steaks too!) And searing doesn’t mean you can’t add seasonings too. You can either add seasonings to the raw meat before searing. Or you can as I did and marinade it before you cook.

Remember that searing keeps the moisture from escaping, but it also won’t allow as much seasoning flavor into your meat either. Anything you add on top of a sear is more like a sauce or relish.

When it came time to roast the lamb rack itself, I created a crust to roast on the top of the seared lamb for a lovely summery flavor!

What this picture doesn’t show is the quarter teaspoon of cardamom that I added to the crust as well.

Cardamom, for me, has always been a Christmas flavor. My mom and I used to make huge batches of cardamom cookies for all my elementary school teachers and it rapidly became my favorite Christmas spice. There’s something about it that just reminds me of winter and cookies and ovens and Christmas lights- something so full of luxury and decadence. (Though that may have to do with the hefty price tag. $16 for a bottle of 20 pods, yeesh!)

But I recently discovered that many people use cardamom as a spring spice. What! I figured I had to try it. At first, I struggled finding a recipe since for years it’s been in my “Christmas only” catalogue. 

I made this leap for two reasons. First, I wanted to slowly easy my palate towards associating yummy cardamom with spring. (That way I can use this pricey spice much more often and quickly. Yay.) Second, since we are getting our first batch of cold weather in NYC and moving from summer to fall, I wanted a nice transition between the two seasons. Cardamom, mint and lamb…the perfect choice and it sounded like heaven.

(Some of you reading may realize these are two diametrically opposed goals and unlikely to be simultaneously satisfied. Oh well. “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman for anyone curious.)

Now I actually combined the old marinade with the new pesto for the crust before smearing it on the lamb. I wouldn’t recommend doing this, honestly. Generally you don’t want to eat fresh foods or produce that came into contact with raw meat. But considering we’d just bought the lamb (it had been in my fridge for 24 hours) and I’d be cooking it at high heat, I figured we’d survive. And I just couldn’t bear to throw out any more mint and cardamom!

What sides go with Lamb Rack?

You mean you don’t want my delicious green, orange, cream medley!? Kidding. I get it. Probably would have been better without the potatoes.

Lamb is usually a spring meal, so stick with spring vegetables and lighter green dishes for the most part: asparagus, radishes, green beans with garlicky mushrooms, yogurt & dill green beans. Try a light arugula salad with farro and peas.

If you’re hosting a fancy dinner, the perfect spring appetizer is this Rustic Mushroom and Leek Galette! Super easy and elegant!

Here is a light watercress and mandarin orange salad that would pair!

Or try this refreshing Three Bean Pasta Salad with Lemon Mustard Dressing!

What wines go with Lamb Rack?

Lamb is a very rich and velvety meat. Too delicate a wine and it overwhelmed by the lamb. Most rules advise a big bold red full of tannic structure to stand up to the fat and rich flavor.

But I have a histamine sensitivity, so I’m pretty much stuck with Syrah and Cotes du Rhone (not that I’m complaining). Both go very well with lamb. 

But if you’re a normal human who can drink all spectrum of reds, try a Chianti, Pinot Noir, or even a Cabernet/Merlot blend for richer preparations.

Trying to break up the reds? A bold Chardonnay or Viognier will pair well with lighter seasoned lambs. And a dry Gewurztraminer will work well!

The Recipe:

Roasted Fall Medley

I decided I wanted a very specific color scheme with this lamb. (Don’t ask. Sometimes I have really weird ideas.) I picked green, orange, and white/cream. After that it was fairly simple to go on a hunt for veggies with that coloring and I settled on…Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, and Potatoes. Fortunately my farmer’s market had all of these options!

I’m not a big potato person. If you serve them to me in a soup, I’ll eat around them. And I’m not sure I really consider mashed potatoes a food? (I know, I know. Sacrilege.) But for some reason roasted potatoes sounded so delicious that day (and fit with the “cream” color). So I decided I’d try a new variety I’d never had before. Maybe it would change my mind. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. But it looked so pretty!

Side: Roasted Fall Vegetables

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Brussels Sprouts, halved
• 6 Painted Pony Potatoes, quartered
• 1 Butternut Squash, cubed
• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• Pinch of Salt
• 6 turns Cracked Pepper
• ¼ tsp of Cardamom

Directions:

Chop all vegetables and combine with oil and spices. Toss to coat evenly. Cover a roasting pan in tin foil. Spread all vegetables in the bottom of said roasting pan over the foil. Place in a 375°F oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Lay lamb over the vegetables and cook as directed above.