Colleen loves lamb, but I’ve really never been a huge fan myself. I’ve enjoyed our Irish Guinness Stew, and our Shepherd’s Pie, but it is not something I would ever order myself at a restaurant or put on our own menu at home usually. But just before Easter, the Outdoorlicious blog included our excellent smoked ham recipe in a round-up of good Easter main dish recipes, and when I clicked through to read it, I noticed a really tasty looking grilled garlic lamb chop recipe from another site, at Grilled-Recipe.Blogspot.Com. But when I clicked through to read it, I discovered that it wasn’t really their recipe, but a simple cut and paste of a “Down Home with the Neely’s” recipe from FoodNetwork.com (without actually linking to the original recipe, in a bit of a violation of posting etiquette). Since we have cooked and posted about several Neely recipes before, and I have really liked all of them, and since Colleen had been talking about doing a lamb dish for Easter (as opposed to last year’s “Easter Bunny” dish), I thought this would be the perfect recipe to try.
As usual (and I almost tire of saying it…), I was right. I had to modify it from a recipe for a whole rack of chops, to previously cut individual chops from Trader Joe’s, but this was without a doubt my favorite lamb dish we’ve done. Frankly, doing it as individual chops turned out better than doing a whole rack would have, in my not so humble opinion. And served with some couscous and a tomato/cucumber salad, it was really quite easy and quite lean and healthy, I’m sure–though Colleen will be the final judge of that…
- 1 Head of garlic
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and cracked pepper
- ¼ Tsp red pepper flakes (or more per taste)
- 1 Tbsp chopped parsley leaves
- 1 Tbsp finely chopped rosemary
- 1 Tbsp finely chopped thyme
- 1 Lb (or close to it) lamb chops, approximately 5 chops
- Roast the head of garlic (slice off top, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, wrap in aluminum foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes).
- Squeeze garlic cloves into small bowl.
- Add 2 Tbsp olive oil, red pepper flakes, parsley, rosemary, and thyme to bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix.
- Put lamb chops into a re-sealable plastic bag and add marinade. Be sure the chops are well covered by the mixture.
- Let sit for 30-60 minutes.
- Grill like you would a steak, 3-5 minutes per side. We cooked it to medium rare and it was fantastic!
