Easy rack of lamb baked in a tasty sweet savoury sauce recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Lamb | 9 comments
Fred’s racks of lamb are always chubby, tender and a real treat. Yesterday I drove back from Essex to find Danny creating a new sauce for a chunky rack. We like to make our sauces in the same pan as the roasting meat. If we get the ingredients right it’s a lazy way to make a sauce and sometimes the sauce also tenderises the meat.
This sauce has soul. It was a treat at the end of a long day. Combined with spinach and creamed potatoes (champ) it was superb. If you prefer a thick sauce, a little corn flour or potato flour could be added while the meat is resting.
Every now and then we buy a 6-bone rack from Fred. We divide it in half, eat one half and freeze the other. The flavour of a small rack of lamb is so much better than lamb chops and it’s much easier to cook.
Easy rack of lamb baked in a sweet savoury sauce recipe (for 2)
Ingredients:
- Half rack of lamb (chubby chops 3-4/400 g)
- 6 tablespoons of dry white wine
- 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
- 2 teaspoons of Sloe and Bramley Jelly’ (you could use a red currant jelly and a splosh of sloe gin. Or just red currant jelly but you won’t get the depth of flavour that the sloe gives)
- 4 rosemary leaves (just the leaf, not a sprig)
- A gentle shake of garlic granules. Don’t be sniffy about these. They are really useful, if you are pressed for time. They are also an essence so you don’t need much. It is defnitely worth playing with garlic granules.
Method:
Preheat your oven to 180c (160c fan)
- Combine the wine, balsamic and jelly in the base of a small (pie) dish.
- Place one leaf of rosemary and a light shake of garlic granules between each cutlet.
- Put in your rack in the dish sitting upright (bones down, fat up) and bake for 30 mins uncovered. Allow 30 minutes for pink. Add five minutes for if you like them medium rare and another five or ten minutes if you want them well done. You can plunge in a knife and separate the cutlets to check, if you want. They won’t mind being bunged back into the oven if they need a little more time.
They are also good with loads of watercress and mini roast potatoes. Mini roasts can be cooked at 180c (160c fan) for forty minutes so you need to start them before the rack. But they can go in at the same time if you rest your meat for 20 minutes.
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As an alternative to garlic granules you could dry your own garlic and grind them to a power in a pestle and mortar.
Better still you could dry and grind roasted smoked garlic. The garlic flavour is softer but has extra depth.
You would need 3 heads of smoked garlic to make a reasonable amount. Funnily enough I know of a good cheap supplier of roasted smoked garlic 🙂
Made this recipe for lunch today and it was fantastic.
Both my teenage children loved it which is saying something as they are not usually very adventurous.
Love your site. Just wish I was in a position to do what you have done but I have a few more years to wait yet and two teenagers to see through university!
I’m preparing for it though and I’m sure it won’t be that long.
Hi Julie,
We are delighted that you chose to try our rack of lamb recipe. I do hope that it worked out well.
Thanks for dropping by.
you saved my life – not a cook but have dinner party this evening and had the lamb with no idea how to cook or even for how long!feel much less stressed now. guests arriving any minute – sure they will be impressed ……. julie
Ash – we use Lea and Perrins too. A must in any moving and shaking kitchen. A good companion whether we’re making a Bloody Mary or a stew. Thanks for dropping by.
Hi Ros – Danny uses sloe jelly and sloe gin in his roast recipes a lot. Although we have larder shelves heaving with both I often forget them when I am cooking. He thinks in a totally different way in his cooking preamble than I do. And then he is totally focussed and remembers everything.
An entirely different approach but the results are great. Thanks for leaving a comment.
I really wish I’d read this post yesterday before I made my lamb roast. It wasn’t a rack- just a rolled shoulder- but I can see these tips would still be useful.
I had made a sauce with almost identical ingredients to yours, minus the sloe gin (which I had in the cupboard but didn’t think to use). I also didn’t think to make the sauce in the roasting tray- mainly because our scummy student roasting trays are manky and horrible. but when I get my own proper equipment, I’ll try this idea- it looks great.
And, I agree about garlic granules… if you’re pressed for time, or want to create a very strong garlic flavour, they are very useful indeed.
I think that the super-chefs would have lots of handthrowing with the way I cook 🙂 My secret ingredient is Worcestershire sauce. My mom used it in all her casseroles and in bolognese sauce and I use it too. Without it there’s definitely something missing.
Then again, after a week eating ‘chef’ food I’m quite happy to eat my own again. I had a job once where I worked as an entertainment coordinator for a group of hotels. I travelled from one to another and ate restaurant food for months. In the end all I could face was a salad and a baked potato. Did wonders for the figure!
Thanks for the compliments on the garden 🙂 I can’t take credit for the spring onions as they were ‘weeds’ that came up from the last tenant’s occupancy. Husband almost pulled them out mistaking them for grass, but I made sure they stayed.
We use garlic granules a lot although we grow loads of garlic and are given French garlic from friends that go to France. The granules have a different effect than the crushed or chopped garlic.
I suspect most super chefs would throw up their hands in horror at the shake of a granule. I use them to pull round a weedy sauce. Danny uses them a lot when he is cooking meat.
Our spring onions are still tiny. There must be something amazing in your dutch soil or perhaps it’s your green fingers, Ash.
Mmm, that sounds wonderful! I use garlic granules that come in a grinder like black pepper. It is wonderful for adding flavour. I have some spring onions from my garden. I think champ is on the menu for tonight!