A Recipe for the Out of the ordinary

Consumed largely on a global scale lamb is not an animal protein most of us are familiar with in our area. It wasn't something my family had regularly in our diet either. Up until a few years ago when a friend introduced me to it because they were raising lambs for meat. So, I had purchased half of a lamb from then that eventually lead to buying my own lamb to raise then into raising lambs for the fair. Seeing we did not have a fair this year with everything going on, I was able to sell what I had and put some in my freezer to consume and sell to the public. Lamb is a nutrient filled meat full of B vitamins, zinc and omega 3s its a healthy choice for meat. The best is if you can find grass fed, which is how I raise mine.

Pictured above were the two lambs we raised this past year. Don't let those cute faces fool you, they were far from friendly no matter how much interaction we had with them and they were about 125 pounds of pure muscle clad in fleece. This year though we will be going full circle with having the lambs born here instead of purchasing my lambs from another breeder. I recently purchased to ewes and a ram that I'm excited to see where things go from here.

When I have my lambs processed I keep the cuts very simple, doing just loin chops, shoulder steaks and ground. I have done leg of lamb as a whole roast before but I use ground lamb more, so i did that instead this year. This brings me to the whole point of this post, to share my recipe to make delicious lamb chops. It is a fairly simple recipe but the butter and garlic give the lamb an even more wholesome flavor. The trick I have found with lamb is to trim as much fat as you can. Also make sure you have lamb, lamb is meat from a sheep that is under 12 months of age anything over that is called mutton and it will have a strong flavor that most don't enjoy.

For this recipe I used eight chops. After I trimmed the fat from them I seasoned with salt, pepper and dried ground thyme. I then seared them in hot oil with fresh garlic in a cast iron skillet. A few minutes to each side. Cooking the chops to about medium. Removing the chops from the skillet, de-glaze the pan with some water and lemon juice adding parsley flakes and crushed red pepper. scraping the bottom of the skillet to mix in the garlic and any browned pieces. shimmer until sizzling. Pour the sauce mixture over the lamb chops and serve. Seeing I am still quite technology illiterate and don't quite know how to make a printable version I have a recipe breakdown below. I highly recommend if you get the chance to try lamb you give it a go. Thank you for reading!

Lamb chops with Garlic sauce

2 lbs of lamb chops (about 8 chops)
Salt and pepper to your liking
1 teaspoon of dried ground time (use more or less as you see fit)
3 tbsp of your choice of oil
10 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp parsley flakes
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

Trim fat, salt and pepper chops and sprinkle with ground thyme. Heat oil in skillet until shimmering or in my terms good and hot with medium high heat. Add garlic to skillet and sear chops on each side about 3 minutes until meat is at medium. Remove chops from skillet and let rest. Add water, lemon juice, parsley and red pepper to skillet scrape and stir in the garlic and any browned bits on the bottom of skillet. Keeping the heat between medium and medium high, simmer until slightly reduced and sizzling. Pour Garlic sauce mixture over lamb chops and serve.