This was a rather lovely week — I actually spent an hour on a beach chair on the patio, reading and watching the birds on my feeders. I thought I had seen a Baltimore oriole, so I went to Johnson’s Hardware and bought a curlicue feeder that I could thread oranges, since I knew orioles like oranges.
At the same time, I filled the hummingbird feeder. Mostly I saw a lot of catbirds (whom I adore) and downy woodpeckers and finches, but no orioles that day or any other day. And, for the sixth year, no hummingbirds. Oh, well, my cat loves watching the birds from the window. She doesn’t care what they are.
Also last week my friend Tom Cherry made a lamb ragout with spring vegetables and, mask on, drove to my condo with a big portion for dinner. It was beyond delicious and, he says, is a recipe, from a 1971 Gourmet magazine. He also says it is not hard to make but is tedious. He will send me the recipe. His wife, Lynne, said this is why she married him.
So last weekend, still thinking about that lamb ragout, I went to Shop Rite for lamb chops for the grill. They didn’t have any, but someone found me a rack of lamb. It was $21, but it was almost eight ribs, so I cut it in half, froze one and grilled the other.
While I marinated it, I boiled some tiny potatoes. When they were done, I poured out the water allowed the potatoes to dry a bit and added some butter and salt. With a small salad, it was a delicious dinner And easy. Here is the recipe.
Rack of Lamb on the Grill
Yield: 2 servings
1 rack of lamb (around a pound)
Marinade of olive oil, lemon zest, stone ground mustard, minced garlic, a few shards of rosemary, salt and freshly cracked black pepper)
Mint jelly, optional
Mix the marinade in a small bowl. Rub the lamb, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 8 hours or so. Take it out of the fridge an hour before you are ready to grill it.
In a propane grill, turn the heat to high and place the rack fat side down, to sear the meat, about 5 minutes/* Do not leave the grill, because there may be flare-ups. Then turn the grill to about 425 degrees. meat side up, and cook for 13 to 15 minutes for medium rare (longer if you want medium to well-done).
With a temperature gauge, meat should be 120 degrees. (There is some carry-on cooking while you let it rest, so perhaps you should take it off a little earlier, if you want it rare.) Let it rest on a cutting board for up to 10 minutes. Then cut the rack into ribs and serve, with or without mint jelly.
* If using a charcoal grill, once the charcoal is almost gray, push some of it to one side and sear the rack on the hot side. Then move the lamb, meat side up, on the cooler side of the charcoal grill.
About the author: Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant. She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and also for the Shore Publishing and Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day.