Recently in Lamb Category

Lamb is one of those meats that I never wanted to try. I love beef, chicken, and pork. I've enjoyed buffalo while on vacation and have had venison, quail, and alligator. But lamb never held much appeal to me. In all honesty, even after two very tasty lamb recipes, it's still not my favorite meat. It's just too fatty in chop form for my tastes. Sea Breeze Farms' lamb sausage however, is definitely on my list of favorites. 

Even though I find lamb chops too fatty, I still enjoy them when my husband cooks them. 
John found this recipe while browsing one of our favorite local food blogs: The Culinary Fool. She posts a lot of local restaurant reviews in addition to her recipes, so check out her site as soon as you're done here!

Lavender Grilled Lamb Chops adapted from The Culinary Fool
Serves 2

• 2 lamb chops (from Sea Breeze Farms)
• 1/4 cup minced culinary lavender
• 2 Tbsp honey or agave nectar
• Salt and pepper

1. Finely chop the lavender.
2. Heat the honey gently so it is spreadable. If you're using agave nectar, it will already be liquid enough.
3. Brush the honey over one side of the chops.
4. Press the honey coated chops into the chopped lavender. 
5. Flip the chops and repeat the coating and pressing on the other side.
6. Grill until done.

Patricia's Notes: When you coat the chops in lavender, it will look like a ton of spice. Seriously. Your chops will be more lavender than meat! But a lot of it falls off during cooking. We use agave nectar whenever a recipe calls for honey because John's diabetic and agave nectar is low-glycemic. However, there are several local sources for honey and there is no local source for agave nectar. Woodring's Orchards sells agave nectar at the University District Farmers Market, but they import it from Mexico.

I enjoyed the lamb, but there's not a lot of meat on the chop. Not to mention it's a little hard to get to the meat because of the fat. However, the fat will caramelize pretty well and so if you do get a bit of fat in your bite it's a lot more enjoyable than you might expect.

If you frequent the Ballard or University District farmers markets, you are probably familiar with Sea Breeze Farms. We buy a lot of their sausage, and occasionally some of their other products such as cream, wine, or Harissa. One thing we hadn't tried until recently was lamb. A few weeks ago, we bought 4 lamb chops.

We adapted this recipe from What Geeks Eat, a delightful blog that I hope you'll subscribe to.

The original recipe called for pistachios. We love pistachios. We don't eat them any more, since we haven't found a local source for them, but every once in a while someone will buy us some and we devour them.
When we looked at this recipe, we figured that it would be almost as tasty using local hazelnuts. I'm not sure how the original recipe compares, but our version was excellent. I'll try the coating on chicken or pork next.

Hazelnut Crusted Lamb Chops adapted from What Geeks Eat
Serves 2

• 2 lamb chops (from Sea Breeze Farms)
• 1/4 cup of hazelnuts (from Holmquist Farms)
• A few drizzles of hazelnut oil (from Holmquist Farms)
• 1 shallot (from Pipitone Farms)
• 1 slice crusty bread (from Tall Grass Bakery)

1. Tear the bread into chunks and use a food processor to make breadcrumbs. If you want to use store bought breadcrumbs, you'll need about 1/4 cup.
2. Add the hazelnuts, shallot, and a few drizzles of hazelnut oil to the food processor and pulse until well combined. 
3. Press the coating mixture onto the lamb chops. You might need to brush the lamb chops with a bit of the hazelnut oil in order to get the coating to stick.
4. Grill until medium-rare to medium.

Patricia's Notes: This recipe was another success. I loved the crust. The taste wasn't overpowering and really let the lamb shine though. I'm sure it would go just as well over chicken or pork and I plan on testing that theory soon. Holmquist Farms sells both whole hazelnuts as well as crushed hazelnuts. So if you don't have a food processor, you can still make this recipe by using store-bought bread crumbs, finely mincing the shallot with a knife, and using the crushed hazelnuts.