Monday, December 16, 2013

Pistachio and Mustard Lamb Rub--Trust me



OK so I've been wanting to try this lamb rub recipe for a long time. I actually got it from my amazing facialist, who is from Eastern Europe and whose family apparently has as much interest in food as mine! (We're Croatian, and we all eat a lot of lamb.) A while ago my mom bought three racks of lamb (does that sound excessive? it's not) while they were on sale and stuck them in the freezer for a day when the grocery store gods were not smiling upon us. She decided to pull them out last weekend and in the absence of another styling I managed to secure rein to experiment on the lamb.

Despite constant commentary from my dad and brothers while putting this together about the green color and the source, it was really good.

(I feel like in return for such a yummy meal, I should probably give thorough acknowledgement to my facialist. I've been going to her for over two years now and she really is great and keeps my face in line so I look good wearing all my home-sewn clothes ;) Check her out at Glo European Skin Care!)




Russian Lamb Rub
(or RLR, as interpreted by my brother.) This combination of mustard and nuts may sound a little funky, but the pistachios lend an interesting taste without overwhelming the good-on-its-own lamb meat. Makes one rack of lamb, but don't expect leftovers!

Ingredients
1 high-quality rack of lamb (as my great-grandpa always said, the unavoidable secret to a good barbecue is to buy good-quality *expensive meat)
Lots of salt and pepper
1/4 cup Dijon (or similar) mustard
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup pistachios
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup bread crumbs

Instructions
0. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
1. Salt and pepper your lamb. Be liberal.
2. Mix together your mustard and garlic. 
3. Spread a thin layer of mustard-garlic over the top of the meat (make sure you get the fleshy part of the other side too!) The real function of the mustard is to make the nuts stick. 
4. Grind up your nuts in a food processor until they are small crumbs. Mix with your bread crumbs.
5. Press your crumb mixture onto the top of the lamb; it should stick because of the mustard.
6. Bake your lamb at 350 for about 30 minutes (for medium-well lamb). Let it sit for about 10 minutes, then carve and enjoy!

Yes, here I am actually toasting bread to make bread crumbs. All our old stash of made-from-stale-bread crumbs got thrown out when our house was fumigated over the summer. You gotta do what you gotta do.



Doesn't this look cool? I think the food processor was on.


Add in your almonds and get it all ground up

Add bread crumbs and mix better than this.

Don't even try to skimp on the salt...








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