Seared Lamb Loin Chops

Happy Easter

Lamb Loin Chops with Roasted Brussel Sprouts

I don't recall ever having lamb before. I've had gyros, but that is for another story. This Easter, I thought I would cook lamb for the three carnivores in my family (the other three do not eat red meat). I bought eight lamb loin chops from a local butcher.

Since I have never cooked lamb chops before and they were very expensive, I watched many YouTube videos and let Google point out other blog postings to me. In the end, I used the technique from "Preparing Lamb Chops" to cook all eight chops, but I seasoned four of them with just salt & pepper while I took ideas from Giada De Laurentiis to create a garlic & rosemary marinade.

I think the best modification I can recommend to you is to use clarified butter instead of regular butter. As you can see from my other postings, my family loves popcorn and we use clarified butter a lot. Because its smoke point is so much higher than regular butter, I knew it would be great in my cast iron skillet for the lamb. If you want to follow what I did, just watch the videos above and use clarified butter instead of plain butter.

Clockwise from upper left: turkey ham (for the non-red-meat eaters) , salt & pepper chops and garlic & rosemary chops

Brussels sprouts preparing to be roasted using smoked paprika, salt & olive oil

Garlic, rosemary & olive olive make a simple, yet flavorful, marinade. Four loin chops with this seasoning

Four remaining chops were seasoned by applying kosher salt & fresh cracked black pepper. While I should have used more pepper, the salt did a great job of pulling the water to the surface. The effect of this is a crust that you can see in a future picture.

Searing using medium high temperature in the cast iron skillet. The clarified butter is working wonderfully.

These are the garlic / rosemary chops. Before adding to the skillet, I wiped away most of the solid herbs to reduce the impact of them burning.

After 4 minutes, I flipped them to reveal a beautiful crust.

The very last minutes of cooking were in the soldier position: standing upright on the bone. I put all of the chops into one pan just so I could the stove for cooking the ham.

Everyone needs a nap - even my lamb. They rested for about 5 minutes while I finished up the meal.