Crown Roast of Lamb

I'm on a pretty interesting diet where I cannot eat many proteins. However, I've recently discovered I can eat lamb again. After many years of not eating lamb, I am no longer allergic to it. YAY! I've been indulging in lamb curries, lamb souvlaki, lamb chops... While digging in my parents freezer the other day, I discovered not 1 but 2 racks of lamb! When you've got at least 2 racks, you may as well make crown roast since it looks really impressive but isn't hard to make. Especially when the frozen packs of lamb are already frenched and marinated... Too bad, I'd been wanting to try a new technique to (supposedly) easily french lamb racks using dental floss. It can be fiddly business to french a rack since that means you need to remove all the membranes and meat surrouding the rib bones of the lamb rack so they appear clean and tidy. Personally, I don't mind a non-frenched rack since I can find a million uses for bones if not simply to kick back and suck them clean.

To serve to company, a crown rack of lamb is a gem tho. I simply thawed the racks, tied the end ribs together, wrapped a few rounds of twine around the roast to keep a circular shape and popped them into a 400 degree oven for 1/2 an hour. A quick pinch test of the meat in the centre of the roast yielded too easily, telling me it was very rare. Another 6 minutes in the oven and it was nicely pinchable - meaning a nice medium rare roast. I prefer rare but I suppose the polite thing to do is to cook to guest and parental tastes.

I'm making myself sound like I love kicking back with rare and bloody meat to chew on and suck on the bones. Well, I am a pleasant peasant. Actually, I have eaten "crude" goat in India as part of a village goat sacrificial ceremony. Only, Metta and I thought they said cured. We were handed handfuls of raw and bloody goat bits.

Back to the roast lamb dinner. I made a mushroom mint dressing by sauteeing onions, garlic, and button mushrooms with salt and pepper. Then I mixed in home made bread cubes and chopped organic mint. A little cranberry jelly left over from Christmas turkey dinner for a touch of sweetness. Then 3 or 4 ladlefuls of delicious broth made at our New Year's "Foa Wao" or Chinese hot pot/fondue. I put it in an oven proof bowl and popped it in alongside the roast.

I try to economize whenever I can so turning on the oven means opportunity to bake as much as can fit in the oven. Potatoes went on the top rack and a very interesting green and white striped spaghetti squash went on the bottom rack. After an hour and a half this squash was still not cooked. Some internet research revealed this was a Chinese spaghetti squash or more commonly known as Shark's Fin Melon (Yu Chi Gwa). Our Polish guest, Fabio, loved the spaghetti squash with butter and parmesan but us Asians decided to use up the melon a few days later as Shark's Fin Melon Soup - delicious. Also, Polish Fabio, is a unabashed meat eater; so, my parents did not think a mere 3 ribs of lamb would be enough for him. Therefore, I was pressed into cooking some Italian sausages as a side. Well, I had been toying with the idea of trying to make Toad in the Hole. It was a success and really easy to make. Brown the sausages for 10 minutes in the oven, pour in the batter which is a mixture of flour, milk, eggs, salt and pepper, bake for 30 more minutes. It turns out that my Mom, Popo, loved it the most.

Ahhh- food with family is divine.