For a special occasion I picked up a rack of lamb. Most people either love lamb or they don't, and it does tend to have a pungent flavor than can overpower everything around it. I've always liked lamb and this was my first lamb smoke.
Most of the time rack of lamb is crusted and roasted, or else just fire grilled. I decided to do it low and slow. Here's how it went:
I scored the rack, and put mustard and Jeff's rub on both sides:
Threw it on my Horizon smoker at around 230 for about 3 hours. Here's the look just before it was done:
Before I knew it, I had already gone up to about 165 internal temperature--this thing really cooked faster than I thought it would. I yanked it off the grill right away:
Finally a warm sunny day here in Portland, so we set up on the patio. You can see I did a couple of long-stem artichokes with some homemade mayonnaise for dipping. Also got a bowl of Jeff's BBQ sauce, and a blond ale.
Carved the ribs individually right there:
Now, I know what you're thinking. There's a smoke ring, but the center is gray, and tender meat can't be gray. Well, like I said I should have pulled it about 10 degrees earlier, but in this case no major harm done. This is such a tender cut that despite the color it was still moist and tender. We ate them like you would a baby back rib- dipping them into the bbq sauce along the way.
There's two things I really like about this method of preparing lamb rack. For one, lamb fat is very firm, and this gave it time to melt and actually become edible. Secondly, the smokiness took the edge off the lamb flavor just a bit. I would definitely use this method again, only next time hopefully keep it somewhat pink in the middle.
Thanks for checking out my latest Q-view!
Most of the time rack of lamb is crusted and roasted, or else just fire grilled. I decided to do it low and slow. Here's how it went:
I scored the rack, and put mustard and Jeff's rub on both sides:
Threw it on my Horizon smoker at around 230 for about 3 hours. Here's the look just before it was done:
Before I knew it, I had already gone up to about 165 internal temperature--this thing really cooked faster than I thought it would. I yanked it off the grill right away:
Finally a warm sunny day here in Portland, so we set up on the patio. You can see I did a couple of long-stem artichokes with some homemade mayonnaise for dipping. Also got a bowl of Jeff's BBQ sauce, and a blond ale.
Carved the ribs individually right there:
Now, I know what you're thinking. There's a smoke ring, but the center is gray, and tender meat can't be gray. Well, like I said I should have pulled it about 10 degrees earlier, but in this case no major harm done. This is such a tender cut that despite the color it was still moist and tender. We ate them like you would a baby back rib- dipping them into the bbq sauce along the way.
There's two things I really like about this method of preparing lamb rack. For one, lamb fat is very firm, and this gave it time to melt and actually become edible. Secondly, the smokiness took the edge off the lamb flavor just a bit. I would definitely use this method again, only next time hopefully keep it somewhat pink in the middle.
Thanks for checking out my latest Q-view!
