Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb

It was my birthday last April. Please don't ask me how old I am, I've just been through the how old are you inquisition. Just like anyone celebrating their birthday I thought I deserved a little treat and so I decided to cook myself a nice rack of lamb. So off I went, dragging Mr. Cat along to The Village Butcher on Oak Bay avenue (not to be slaughtered, silly!). Alas! (that is so retro, I love saying that!) they didn't have the Salt Spring Island rack of lamb I was hoping to get. I wanted my birthday treat so badly I was determined to turn the entire Vancouver Island (just Victoria maybe) upside down just to get myself that rack of lamb. So I googled Slater's phone number and asked if they have it and of course they did, otherwise the smug "First Class Meats" tag line would need to be taken off. I reserved a four-rib rack of lamb and again dragged Mr. Cat off to Cadboro Bay to pick up my loot. Silly me, I forgot that lamb is relatively smaller than a cow but nevertheless I bought it. I was kind of disappointed but come to think of it, two pieces is probably just the right serving anyway.



I was probably possessed or something but I grabbed Gordon Ramsay's Sunday Lunch and started working on this herb crusted rack of lamb recipe. I seasoned the lamb with salt and pepper then seared it before shoving it into the oven until it was nicely and evenly browned just like Gordon said. I think my oven temperature was too high because that didn't take long at all. Then I whizzed a day old and lightly toasted bread in a food processor with olive oil, parsley, lemon zest, rosemary, garlic and Parmesan and a bit of salt and more pepper to make the herb crust. I took the lamb out of the oven, slathered it with good old Coleman's English mustard, then I spread the herb crust and shoved it back in the oven for 5 minutes. It smelled like heaven while it was cooking so what could possibly go wrong? I mean just look at that?



Of course, everything went wrong. Murphy's law, duh! I was too excited, I didn't let it rest. I plated my cous cous salad, eagerly sliced the lamb and put the slices right on top.



Somewhere at the back of my mind I knew that it was raw. After all it was still bleeding like fresh road kill. I called Mr. Cat to sit down and eat. He was very nice and very polite obviously not wanting to earn the wrath of the stressed out birthday girl but he just couldn't risk food poisoning so he told me in a very nice way "Sweety, I think the lamb needs to be cooked a little more, I like it pink but this is too pink." Actually it was more like Hannibal Lecter red not pink. So I turned the oven back on and snapped some photos while we were waiting for the oven to warm up again.

Thank goodness the wine was excellent!!