The lamb chops used in this recipe can be either shoulder chops or loin chops. The pictures show two shoulder chops being prepared.
The ingredients for the marinade are the same as for the sauce so gather together: 1 cup orange juice mixed with 1 cup pineapple juice, 4 stems of fresh rosemary, 2 cloves chopped garlic, 1 medium onion (finely chopped), 1/2 teaspoon table salt, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, and 1 teaspoon dried thyme.
Mix everything except the rosemary together. Reserve about 3/4 cup of the resulting mixture for creating the sauce later.
Pour the unreserved mixture into a large resealable plastic bag and position two to four lamb chops into the marinade. Sandwich the fresh rosemary between the chops and reseal the bag (working as much air out as possible). Place the bag on a plate into the refrigerator to marinade for at least one hour and no more than four. The pineapple juice contains enzymes that will tenderize the lamb by breaking down the protein structures. Marinating too long may result in an undesirable mushy texture.
After marinating, remove the lamb from the bag and pat dry with a kitchen towel or paper towels. You can leave any herbs or onions left sticking to the surface of the chop for caramelization and inclusion in the sauce.
Heat a large pan with one to two tablespoons of high quality extra virgin olive oil (the type that doesn't smoke at low temperatures). The amount of oil will be dictated by the dimensions of your pan. You want just enough oil to evenly coat the pan when the oil is hot. Once the oil is up to temperature (the oil flows freely, the surface of the oil shimmers, and the edges begin to emit slight wisps of smoke), place the lamb chops into the pan without crowding. Leave the chops alone for four minutes.
Because we didn't remove the onions on the surface of the lamb chops, the onions become caramelized and provide a distinct oniony sweet fragrance to this dish. Unfortunately, they also prevent the lamb from developing a beautiful sear. I usually, scrape off the excess onions from the second side before flipping the chop over so a sear is formed on that side. The onions that have been scraped off will caramelize while the chop is searing. So, scrape off the top side of the chops and flip them over when the first four minutes have elapsed.Related Articles
Reduce the sauce until it it thickened. A good way to identify how thick a sauce has become is to run a spoon or spatula through the sauce and see how long the resulting trail is filled back in with the sauce. The sauce is ready when a trail remains for several seconds.
Serve with sauce spooned on top of the lamb chop.Rosemary Lamb Chops (serves two to four)
Marinade
| 1 cup (235 mL) orange juice | mix | reserve 3/4 cup marinade marinade in refrigerator 1-4 hours | |
| 1 cup (235 mL) pineapple juice | |||
| 2 cloves garlic | mince | ||
| 1 medium (110 g) onion | chop | ||
| 1/2 tsp. (3 g) table salt | |||
| 1 tsp. (2.1 g) ground black pepper | |||
| 1 tsp. (1 g) dried thyme | |||
| 2 to 4 lamb chops | |||
| 4 stems fresh rosemary | |||
Rosemary Lamb Chops
| 3/4 cup reserved marinade | simmer remove chops at 140°F (60°C) | deglaze pan and reduce | ||
| 2 to 4 marinated lamp chops | pat dry | sear 4 min. per side | ||
| 1 Tbs. (15 mL) extra virgin olive oil | heat | |||
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I'll be picking up some chops on the way home now! I can almost smell them cooking now...
The name of your blog/ site intrigued me so I came by to have a look. Just the other day I saw that a prize is being offered by Civil Engineering institutions in the UK for writers to show engineers in a great light - I thought you might like to take a look at it at http://forums.booktrade.info/showthread.php?t=550.
By the way, I am not at all connected with the above prize - I am a Malaysian-born writer based in London. I've published two "lawyer in periol" thrillers THE FLAME TREE and MINDGAME and I have just launched my "fusion" lit blog at http://www.yangmayooi.blogspot.com where I share my Eastern and Western perspective on writing and the arts. I was tickled by the engineers offering that prize as there are lots of thrillers about lawyers but not so many on accountants or engineers etc!
I know this comment isn't directly relevant to your recipe post - so apologies about that - but I thought it might be the quickest way to make contact and share this info with you and your readers.
PS. I have put a recipe on my blog from my Grandma for soy sauce chicken you might like to have a look at.
All the best
Yang-May Ooi
I would suggest using any decent olive oil for this recipe and save the expensive extra-virgin stuff for raw uses. Although the smoke point is "relatively low" it is still high enough for searing meat. Alternatively, use grapeseed oil, which has a high smoke point, a clean taste, and the same omega-3 and other health qualities as olive oil.
Keep up the good work!
blork
www.blork.typepad.com
Garlic mashed potatoes, Swiss chard, and baby carrots.
That's more or less up to the pan and stove you have (in fact, all the "temperature" recommendations are subject to your stove and pan). In this case we just want to bring the oil up to temperature - somewhere around 300-325°F or a bit more. I use medium heat for this on my gas range and saute pan.
Great recipe - chops turned out amazing!
As a first time visitor I am still dazed and in awe of this wonderful site. Thanks.
Probably not a typo - grapeseed oil is from the seeds of grapes, often after they have been used for another purpose such as winemaking. Rapeseed oil comes from the seeds of a leafy green plant usually grown as feed, for oil production, or use in chinese cooking. Canola oil is the most common type of rapeseed oil in the U.S.
I wanted to add to the question/comment about "grapeseed oil". I'm sure it wasn't a typo, since grapeseed oil is wonderful for frying. It used to be next to impossible to find in markets in the California, but lately I'm seeing it more and more, and I think for good reason: It is GREAT for high heat cooking, such as searing meats, since it has a very high smoke point of 485F! I don't know of any other oil that can go that high, except for maybe motor oil. :-)
An although it doesn't have much flavor on it's own, that can be a good thing. It just does it's job of enhancing thermal transfer and lubrication, and otherwise stays out of the way.
Another big plus, in my book, is that it is oil derived from what would otherwise be a waste-product of wine and vinegar production. Because the seeds are often considered "trash", they can be obtained very cheaply, which may be the only reason it isn't otherwise prohibitively expensive, since it takes a huge number of seeds to get a pint of oil.
Thanks again for the recipe post!
BTW: If you successfully enter the confirmation code and then click 'preview', instead of 'submit', you have to enter another code when you actually submit. And on top of that, with the Mozilla Firefox browser, something is getting cached and neither the prior code nor the new challenge code works. So I had to back all the way out and re-enter my post. I don't know if it's a browser-specific problem, but figured you'd like to know about it.
I'll put a story up on my blog - http://charlieandrorysfood.blogspot.com/
Thanks
Martin dep
dailytrader.com
@Gary
Another lovely taste treat is to take your fresh rosemary stems (about the size of skewers) and thread marinated cubes of lamb, chicken, beef, fish or whole shelled prawns/shrimp alternated with marinated vegetables of your choice. We like mushrooms wrapped in bacon, onions, red bell peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes. For those of you who like rosemary but don't want the taste too strong, strip some of the leaves but leave the tip and enough leaves to flavor the kabob.
Bon Appétit!
Aloha!
Thank you!
perhaps 20-30 minutes wouldn't do too much harm.
3-4 hours could be a different issue.