Strawberry Mint Glazed Roasted Rack of Lamb

A tart and fruity strawberry and mint glaze makes a wonderful sticky topping for this strawberry mint glazed roasted rack of lamb. It’s the perfect dish for date night or the ingredients are easily doubled for a family dinner. 

Years ago I discovered quite by accident that a rack of lamb takes only 45-60 minutes to roast, which is so much quicker than the leg, my usual part of a lamb to roast. As much as we love lamb chops, I had never bought them all hooked together still. 

One day I arrived home to find a care package with big prawns, some smoked salmon and a vacuum-packed rack of lamb stashed in my refrigerator. One of the catering contractors who supplied my husband’s drilling rigs had dropped it all off as a thank you for the business.

Those were the days of achingly slow dial-up internet so I consulted my trusty Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook (1980 edition.) Right there on page 227, the instructions were so simple: Season with salt and pepper. Roast for 1 hour or until you reach your desired internal temperature. In the last 15-30 minutes, brush with an apricot glaze aka warmed apricot jam. Honestly, does it get easier than that? Who knew!

Good Housekeeping ended with the instructions of how to remove the back bones on one side of the rack so the chops can be easily cut apart. Let me offer you a little tip. Ask your butcher to do this before you even bring that rack of lamb home. Roasting and serving is quicker and easier without those back bones to deal with. 

Strawberry Mint Glazed Roasted Rack of Lamb

Instead of the Good Housekeeping recommendation of apricot glaze, you can use any fruit you like so this can be a wonderfully seasonal dish. This time I used strawberries and mixed them with the more traditional accompaniment to lamb, classic mint sauce. Any leftover glaze can be served with the roasted rack of lamb, to spoon over the chops. So good! 

Ingredients

For the strawberry mint glaze/sauce:

7 oz or 200g strawberries

Pinch salt

1­-2 teaspoons sugar (if needed, depending on the sweetness of your strawberries)

2 tablespoons prepared mint sauce (Not mint jelly! Proper mint sauce has a bite from the vinegar. I recommend Colman's Classic Mint Sauce.)

For the rack of lamb:

1 1/2 lbs or 680g rack of lamb, preferably with a nice layer of fat on top

1 teaspoon flakey sea salt 

1 large clove garlic

1⁄2 teaspoon peppercorns (I use mixed peppercorn but just black are fine.)

Method

Start your oven preheating to 375°F or 190°C. 

Use a sharp knife to score the fat on the top of the rack of lamb. Don't cut all the way through to the meat.

Use a mortar and pestle to crush the peppercorns, garlic and salt salt into a paste.

Rub the seasonings into the scored fat then place it on a rack in a baking pan. Set aside. 

To make the strawberry mint glaze, hull the strawberries and chop them into quarters. Cook them until soft in a small covered pot over a medium flame, with the pinch of salt and a splash of water.

Taste the strawberries and add a little sugar if they aren’t sweet. 

Mash the strawberries with a fork and cook them down until they are a thick sauce. Remove from the heat and stir in the mint sauce. Set it aside

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When your oven has reached the proper temperature, put the pan in the oven and roast the rack of lamb for about 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches about 115°F or 46°C, for rare chops.

Remove the rack from the oven and brush it all over thickly with the strawberry mint glaze.

Return the rack to the oven for another 15 minutes or until the internal temperature is about 135°F or 57°C. Remove it from the oven and tent it with foil for about 10 minutes.

Slice into six chops and serve the remaining strawberry mint sauce alongside the chops.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay again and this time I’m hosting and we are sharing lamb recipes. Check out all the delicious recipes below. 

• Handi Mutton Mughlai from Sneha's Recipe
• Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Sauce from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Lamb Stew from Making Miracles
• Stinging Nettle and Lamb Börek from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Stir-fried Mongolian Lamb with Scallions from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Strawberry Mint Glazed Roasted Rack of Lamb from Food Lust People Love

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Roasted Rack of Lamb!

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Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast

This Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast is made with a Boston butt roast, covered in a savory spice blend. It’s cooked with a sous vide precision cooker for 18 hours, then finished off in a hot oven, which keeps it tender and juicy. Start this recipe one day ahead of serving time. Yes, it’s a long time but most of it is hands-off. Set the sous vide and go about your life.

I know I’m a little weird but I think the sous vide machine humming away in a corner is a happy sound because it means another perfectly cooked whatever is in our future. When my son-in-law gave me the sous vide precision cooker for Christmas several years ago, I had no idea how much fun I’d have experimenting and playing with it.

One thing that amuses me about the sous vide process is that if you are cooking a large piece of meat, you have to plan and cook several meals in the interim. So different from my usual "choose meat - season meat - cook meat - serve meat right now" method of meal planning. I enjoy the planning as much as the process: which cut to choose, how to season it, then figuring out the optimum time and temperature.

Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast

Total time for this recipe is 19 hours, 18 in the precision cooker and then 1 hour in a hot oven to brown the outside. In order to simplify this recipe, I have published dry rub ingredients and how-to on another page. Click here for those instructions.

Ingredients
1 boneless Boston butt roast (about 6-7 lbs or 2.7-3.2kg)
3 tablespoons java dry rub, divided
Time!
Optional for roasting: add potatoes and carrots for a full meal!

Method
Make the java dry rub. (See note above.)

Thoroughly massage 2 tablespoons of the rub into your pork roast.

Tuck it into a large leak-proof bag. Slowly lower the bag into a bucket or sink filled with water to vacuum pack the roast and remove all the air from inside the bag. Seal tightly.

Set your precision cooker to 145°F or 63°C – this temperature and time will create a sliceable tender pork roast.

When the bath is at temperature, add sealed bag with pork and cover with foil or plastic wrap. Leave to sous vide for 18 hours.

When the time is up, if you aren’t planning to roast the pork immediately, you can refrigerate it, still in the vacuum bag until you are ready. If the roast is completely chilled, keep in mind that it will need extra time in the oven to get up to serving temperature again.

To finish the roast in the oven: Adjust the oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400°F or 200°C. Remove pork from sous vide bag and carefully blot dry with paper towels.

Rub reserved spice mixture into the surface of the pork. Place pork in a large iron skillet or roasting pan and place it in the preheated oven. If you’d like to turn this into a full roast dinner, add some peeled potato and carrot chunks that have been tossed in some oil or duck fat. Roast about 1 hour.

Remove the roast from the oven and leave to rest for about 10 minutes before carving.

I promise, it melts in your mouth! Any drippings can be used to make gravy.

Enjoy!

It’s MultiCooker Monday again! Many thanks to Sue of Palatable Pastime and Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for their behind the scenes work. Check out all of the great recipes my friends are sharing, using their various small appliances.

• Carrot Halwa from A Day in the Life on the Farm 
• Crispy Air Fried Cod Fillets from Karen's Kitchen Stories 
• Homemade Chicken Stock (Crockpot) from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking 
• Instant Pot Lasagna Soup from Making Miracles 
• Java Dry Rub Sous Vide Pork Roast from Food Lust People Love 
• Lauki Bahar - Pressure Cooker from Sneha's Recipe 
• Punjabi Goat Curry (Instant Pot) from Palatable Pastime

Multicooker Monday is a blogger group created by Sue of Palatable Pastime for all of us who need encouragement to make better use of our small appliances like slow cookers, Instant Pots, Air Fryers, rice cookers and sous vide machines. We get together every third Monday of the month to share our recipes. If you are a food blogger who would like to post with us, please request to join our Facebook group.

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