Rosemary Honey Lamb and Herbed Foccacia Bread

Oh I've got a good one for you tonight.

Top foods had a sale on all natural grass fed lamb (and beef too!), so lamb was on the menu tonight. 

I got a couple of lamb shoulder cuts because those looked like the most economical.  You know, more meat, less bone, cheapest.  Gotta go with economical when you're buying grass fed meat.

A few days ago Jon and I were talking about food I should make that I could blog about and he enthusiastically blurted out, "You should do a post on foccacia bread!"  Jon doesn't usually get so enthused about food, but apparently (I found this out today) the foccacia bread is the best bread he's ever had.  Wow!  Ha ha!  Funny, how he doesn't really tell me these things the first time I make them.  Silly husband.

Tonight's lamb recipe comes from mom.  I don't really know where she got it, and again she doesn't really give me measurements, but hey, it all works out.  Let me just say that you can take some liberties with the quantities of ingredients in the lamb marinade. 

I ran out of dijon mustard, but I had some spicy brown mustard in the fridge so I went half and half with that.

Mom's Rosemary and Honey Lamb Chops
adapted from Mom

2 lamb shoulder chops

4 cloves of garlic minced
2tbsp of honey
2 tbsp oil (I used sunflower)
1tbsp dijon mustard
1tbsp spicy brown mustard
juice of 1 lemon
1tbsp rosemary

1.  Throw everything but the lamb into a ziplock bag and mix it around a bit until it's well combined.

2.  Put the lamb chops in the bag, get all the air out and seal it.

3.  Refrigerate the chops for at least 4 hours and up to 24.  I let them marinate for 5-6 hours today.

4.  About an hour before you're ready to bake them take them out of the fridge and let them come up to room temp.

5.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 

6.  Bake your chops for 20-25 minutes depending on size and desired doneness. 

This is a pic of the chops right before they went into the oven. Some people like to take all the marinade off, but I like the chunks of garlic and herbs on there. 

Unfortunately I wasn't so careful about how long I cooked my chops for and they came out slightly overdone after 25 minutes.  They weren't incredibly large and I should have probably only cooked them for 20 minutes. The flavor was still intense though and they weren't rock hard or anything. 

I let them rest for a few minutes after cooking while the foccacia bread was baking too.

Speaking of foccacia bread.  Here's the recipe.

It's adapted from my Cuisinart convection bread maker recipe book.  Just as the sandwich bread was made in the breadmaker, so was this dough.  I'll put some instructions on how to make the dough without a bread maker down at the bottom.

Herbed Foccacia Bread - 1lb foccacia round
Ingredients for bread
3/4c water (80-90 degrees)
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp italian seasoning
1tsp salt
3/4c whole wheat flour
1 1/3c all purpose flour
1tsp active dry yeast

Ingredients for topping

2 tbsp oil (I used sunflower because of the high heat, though I know that extra virgin gives a better flavor.  Darn carcinogens.  Bah.)

1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
1/4 cup parmigiano reggiano
3 tbsp italian seasoning (or chopped fresh herbs - basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, parsley) - I used dried.

1.  Place all these ingredients in your bread maker in the order shown and set it on the dough cycle!

2.  When the cycle is done oil your fingers and take the dough out, punch it down, shape it into a round disc (about 1 inch thick), put it onto your baking sheet and cover with a tea towel and let it rise for 40 minutes.

3.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
(If you have a pizza stone feel free to use this, otherwise a regular cookie sheet works fine.  If you want the crust on the bottom to be crispy you can take the bread off the cookie sheet a few minutes before it's done and put it straight on an oven rack. )

4.  Make indentations in the dough with oiled fingertips all over.  Drizzle with oil.  Sprinkle with salt, cheese, and herbs and put your dough into the oven.

If you're wondering about my crazy cookie sheet it's specially designed for pizza baking.  It ensures a crispy bottom without a pizza stone.

 

5.  Bake for 10-12 minutes until crust is golden brown and cheese has darkened a bit.

(If you need to make this without a bread maker combine the yeast and warm water.  When the yeast/water mixture is frothy add the rest of the ingredients and mix well until a dough ball forms.   Knead it for a couple minutes.  Put the dough ball into a well oiled bowl and let it rise until doubled in bulk. Probably around 45 minutes.  Then just follow the rest of the instructions starting with #2.)

Enjoy!!

Oh, but you must enjoy it this way.  It's the best.  I got this idea from this fantastic restaurant called Griffins.  It's one of my family's favorite restaurants to go to for celebrations (birthdays, mother's day, father's day etc.)  It's at the bottom of the Hotel Vancouver in downtown.  You should go, the food is great.

In a bowl combine extra virgin olive oil, good quality balsamic (I say good quality because I've had some really sour horrible stuff before.  I got what I paid for.  Ick!), and 2 cloves of minced garlic!   Use this as your dipping sauce.  It's wonderful.  If you want to get super fancy you can add some minced sun dried tomatoes and italian herbs to this.  Tonight we went simpler with just the garlic.

Dinner must have been decent tonight because Jon ate in the wrong order.  He usually goes for his veggies first like a good health nut.  Then the meat, then the starch.  Yes, he eats everything in separate stages.  I still think it's odd.  Anyways, tonight he ate meat first, then bread, then broccoli.  Success in my book.  Hee hee!