We made rack of lamb for Easter dinner.
We made two flavors of crust. Both were excellent.
Ingredients
The first crust flavor had macadamia nuts, parsley, regular mustard, and parmesan cheese:
The second crust flavor used macadamia nuts, pistachio nuts, butter, and Dijon mustard:
In addition to the ingredients shown, you’ll need a bit of olive oil.
Preparation
First, coat the lamb in salt and pepper and then pan-sear it in a little olive oil at high heat:
This takes less than 2 minutes per side; the goal is not to cook the lamb, which will be done in the oven, but to seal the surface to retain internal moisture during cooking and to prepare the surface for the crust.
With the back of a spoon, spread the mustard over the seared lamb:
Meanwhile, in a food processor combine the other crust ingredients with a bit of butter or olive oil for better cohesion. For the parsley crust, we ground the nuts first and added the parsley last with a bit of oil:
Spread the rest of the crust ingredients over the mustard-covered lamb:
Preheat the oven to 400ºF, and place the lamb on a foil-covered baking sheet:
Cook for 20-25 minutes. They’ll come out looking like this:
Slice between each rib and serve:
Some of the crust detaches, but it still goes great with the lamb. (Conventional recipes use bread crumbs, which we eschew.)
Conclusion
This is an easy entrée to prepare and it tastes fantastic! With a little wine, it’s excellent for your HDL.
via this link:
Which crust did you prefer? They both sound yummy.
There were mixed opinions … Probably the parsley got a majority vote.
Anyone know of a substitute for bread crumbs when making Parmesan dishes?
Those look sooooo good!
Hi erp – You could try gluten-free bread for the crumbs. We don’t eat sandwiches any more so we didn’t have any on hand.
I haven’t found any bread that doesn’t have some forbidden ingredient in it.
In Udi’s gluten free bread, http://www.amazon.com/Udis-Gluten-Free-White-Sandwich/dp/B0049OQJXA/, you have to get to ingredient #5 before you reach a forbidden ingredient. That’s not bad. If you really want bread crumbs, give that a try.
Thanks I’ll check it out.
Paul,
New reader of yours, great stuff. I’ll be getting the book soon and am excited to read through it.
I’m just popping in to correct a fairly common culinary misconception — searing does not in fact “seal in the juices”. This is easy to test: a seared roast will lose just as much moisture to subsequent cooking than an unseared roast. The reason to sear is that it produces via the Maillard reaction new, flavorful compounds, particularly those that give roasted meat its signature flavor.
Paul, it’s said that searing increases the risk of some kinds of cancer (puncreas and colon I think). Is this true in your opinion and should you avoid searing meat on a daily basis?
Hi Mark,
Yes, high temperature cooking can create toxic compounds like HCAs that can cause cancer. Gentle cooking is healthiest.