Rack of lamb with cardamome and roasted pepper stuffed with olive-oil

[fabienpe]

Rack of lamb with cardamome and roasted pepper stuffed with olive-oil mashed potatoes

Serves 6 as Main Dish.

• 
  

Lamb

• 2 single racks of lamb (2 bones per serving) with fat
  
• 30 cardamome pods
  

Stuffed peppers

• 2 red peppers (3 lobes each)
  
• 500 g potatoes (for mashed potatoes)
  
• 10 cl milk
  
• 10 cl olive oil
  
• 6 black olives, stone removed, finely chopped
  

Sauce

• 2 kg lamb bones
  
• 5 l water
  
• 1 veal's (or pig's) trotter
  
• 2 carrots, washed and unpeeled, cut into 1cm pieces
  
• 2 onions cut into 1cm pieces
  
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
  
• 3 cardamome pods
  

Most of the preparation can be done the day before.

Sauce

- Prepare a demi-glace with the lamb bones:

- Roast the bones for about an hour in a hot oven. Add the carrots and onions. Roast for another half hour. Bones and vegetable should be brown but not burned.

- Pour the bones and vegetables in a large pot of cold water. Pour hot water in the roasting pan and rub the bottom to melt all solidified juices and pour in the stock pot. Do not salt until the very end, that is when the stock has been reduced down to glace de viande.

- Simmer for an hour removing scum frequently. Add the tomatoes and 5 cardamome pods. Simmer slowly for another 5-10 hours by adding water and scumming if needed.

- Strain the liquid. Return to a clean pot and boil down to three quarters. Let cool down and remove solidified fat.

- Return to a clean pot and boil, strain again and boil down until you get a syruppy dark liquid. Salt.

Lamb

- Extract the black seeds from the cardamome pods. You can put the shell into the stock.

- For each rack, trim the fat from the top of the rack leaving the fat on the meat part but removing the fat on the bones. Try to keep one large rectangular sheet fat per rack. Remove excess of fat so the the rectangle of fat is thin and has roughly the same thickness. Keep the two rectangles in the fridge.

- Continue the trimming and scrapping around the bones to have clean bones above the "eye". Make two sets of parallel incisions in the fat covering the meat, each set crossing each other.

- Cut the racks into 3 pieces each: 2 bones per serving. Cover the top and sides of the lamb chops with cardamome seed and reserve in the fridge until used.

Crispy skin

- Salt the rectangles of lamb fat and place them between two baking sheets. Put a heavy oven proof weight on top. Cook in the oven around 150°C for about 2 hours (checking time to time and removing excess of liquid fat). The fat should have a golden colour and should be crispy.

- When still warm, slice 6 pieces of the same size and shape.

Stuffed peppers

- Gently boil the unpeeled potatoes in salted water 20 to 30 minutes. When cooked drain them immediately. Peel the potatoes and mash them. Add the oil and the warm milk. Salt. Dry the mash in a pot with thick bottom, mixing thouroughly with wood spoon. Add chopped olives. Reserve.

- Grill the full peppers to burn their skin but without cooking them fully. Cut them along the lobes and peel them.

- Stuff each lobe with mashed potatoes. Put each of them on a small piece of foil.

Finish

- Warm the plates.

- Pre-heat oven and re-heat stuffed peppers at medium temperature. Keep in a warm place. Increase oven temperature to maximum.

- Pan fry the lamb chops quickly to give them a nice colour on each side but without cooking them (about 30 seconds on the meaty sides and 1-2 minute on the skin side). Arrange the chops in an oven tray. The pan frying can be done before your guests arrive.

- Reheat the the sauce.

- Cook the lamb chops for about 12 minutes. Let them rest 5 minutes in a warm place while you're preparing the plates.

- On each warm plate: put one stuffed pepper; sauce the plate. Cut each roasted lamb chop into two pieces and place them on the plates (pink inside top). Add some fleur de sel on the meat. Add a warm crispy skin/fat on the side of the meat.

Keywords: Main Dish, Lamb, Easy

( RG609 )