The Roediger House: Meal Number 242: Garlic-Crusted Roast Rack of New Zealand Lamb with Madeira and Stilton Sauce

Monday, March 21, 2011

Meal Number 242: Garlic-Crusted Roast Rack of New Zealand Lamb with Madeira and Stilton Sauce

I have taken some good-natured ribbing (I'm looking at you, Susan Phillis, and I'm sorry Bradley threw you under the bus) for tossing up some particularly pretentious-sounding titles and descriptions for some of the meals catalogued here on the blog. So I have given it both barrels for the small dinner gathering last night, and the scrumptiousness and fantastic deliciousness of it make me feel the spit and vinegar of a street kid challenged by a lesser mortal on a grimy back street of the city. Let the chest-bumping begin, no matter who gets all up in my grill.

Because this was the main feature of the meal, both beautiful in its state of rest and awesome in taste:

A recent issue of Food & Wine magazine (April 2011) showed up here at the house, and on the cover was this garlic and rosemary-crusted rack of lamb, and it was so simple and impressive I figured I'd have to have a go at it. A whole head of garlic is processed along with rosemary and olive oil to give a good rub to set up the racks:

To go along with it, I dug out a recipe for a Madeira and stilton sauce and decided to try it out as well, and it was a delicious accompaniment. That meant a run to the Whole Foods, since stilton is not a usual item in the Harris Teeter fancy cheese case.

With some peas and pearl onions and rather large sweet potatoes, it made a complete spectacle of itself:

Bradley Phillis is a usual and faithful guest for meals that get thrown together here, and I think he noticeably slowed down his progress through the dinner in an effort to fully savor it. That's a great compliment to the chef.

I, on the other hand, couldn't slow down to enjoy it because I was enjoying it way too much.

A tall pile of bones also feels like a good compliment to the chef.

The finishing touch was lemon tarts, following (loosely) the recipe I got from Anne Pierce (1905-1996), the neighbor up the street when I was growing up in Buies Creek and also my kindergarten teacher: