ISO cherry glazed crown rack of lamb recipe

[Poppinfresh]

I've always wanted to make one of these ever since I heard the dish name (albeit in Hollywood-fantasyworld) in the movie "How to lose a guy in 10 days". Have long felt that it would be an amazing melding of flavors.

Problem is, it doesn't seem like there are many, if any, recipes out there for this dish. Seeing as how crown racks aren't cheap, I don't want to risk MacGuyvering it and screwing it up.

So...anybody out there have a great cherry glazed crown rack of lamb recipe? I am not only able but generally prefer dishes that require an advanced skill level, so I'm certainly not afraid of a multi-phase gourmet take on this.

 

[jkath]

Seeing as how crown racks aren't cheap, I don't want to risk MacGuyvering it and screwing it up.

I'm bumping this up, in case someone has it!

 

[Poppinfresh]

I was digging through my recipe rolodex tonight and found a glaze that I would put on pork that I think might transfer well to this dish. Was always an amazing glaze, but The Lady of the House generally does not like pork, so I haven't used it in quite some time. It's a pinot noir balsamic glaze with a black cherry reduction. Gonna buy a couple of lamb chops tomorrow to test it out on. If it works out I'll toss it up here for anyone else doing lamb for Christmas.

 

[Bilby]

I always assumed it was a sweet cherry flavour to the glaze in the dish quoted, but there you go!

 

[Poppinfresh]

Tried it for lunch. It was pretty good, but not quite what I was looking for. Black cherries just don't have the right burst I was looking for. Plus they aren't in season, so I had to go with frozen.

I'm gonna make another go at it with a couple more chops for dinner, except this time I'm gonna go with fresh Bing cherries instead of black. I think I'm also going to go with a fruitier wine--maybe a merlot. Gonna add honey to the reduction as well.

 

[Jeekinz]

Swap the Merlot for Creme de Cassis....or something along those lines.

 

[Poppinfresh]

^As delicious as that sounds to me, The Lady of the House does not like the flavor of currants. As a result, I can't even think of the last time I've had a kir royale. My bar is missing the ingredient .

Anyhow, on the lamb front--success! The swap to Bing cherries and merlot instead of pinot worked out beautifully, and the honey gave it just enough sweetness to still give it the bite the aged balsamic brings to the table while maintaining it as a sweet dish. I've just got to properly format the recipe into my database and then I can slink it over into this thread (once I've converted it to a crown rack cooking recipe instead of a chop recipe).

 

[auntdot]

We had a rack of very baby lamb last night.

Cannot imagine a sweet sauce, or almost any sauce with that.

Now with a leg or a large rack I, gosh, wow, a cherry sauce would work.

Have never really thought of fruit with lamb.

Thanks. Gotta work on this.

Merry Christmas.

 

[Jeekinz]

Good job Poppin. I usually make a roasted red pepper jus for my lamb. Post your recipe.

 

[Poppinfresh]

OK, recipe for the reduction and glaze are below. I don't know exactly what the cooking instructions for the lamb itself will be as I don't have much experience with crown racks, so you'd have to ferret that out online somewhere on your own (or else wait until I get around to finding cooking instructions for it myself between now and X-mas). I'm also still debating on what I want to do with the center of the rack. I'm pondering stuffing it with rosemary/white truffle mashed potatoes (which would increase cooking time), but am also debating just whether to put a bunch of herbs in there and then make the potatoes separate. I'll finish the complete recipe for perusing once I figure that aspect out.

Glaze:

3/4 cup aged balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon honey
1/2 a shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Roughly half a bottle of merlot

Assembly:

Combine all ingredients, reduce over medium heat for 20 minutes.

NOTE ON THIS: This reduces to...well, not a whole heck of a lot. I'm not entirely certain this would be enough for a crown rack. It's possible this recipe would have to be doubled or even tripled for enough glaze to do a proper crown rack which is at least two racks and sometimes 3.

Reduction sauce:


2 cups fresh Bing cherries
1 shallot, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups chicken stock (In retrospect I think lamb stock would be better for obvious reasons, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find it where I live)
2 cups merlot
pat of butter
salt/pepper

Assembly:

-Put cherries, shallot, garlic, and merlot in a sauce pot over medium high to high and reduce for about 10 minutes until it's almost completely reduced
-Add stock, lower heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes or until nice and thick
-Add in butter. Salt and pepper to taste

 

[Jeekinz]

Poppin,

I have some creations like this in my memory banks. Is it necessary to have both the glaze and sauce? I was thinking more along the lines of a thick glaz-y type 'sauce' all in one.

 

[Poppinfresh]

I'm sure there is a way to do it all in one, and I fully intend to figure out how to do it...thing is, it's less than a week before Christmas, and if I eat much more lamb trying to perfect things, I'm not gonna want any when I make the piece de resistance :P.

What I've been doing with the chops so far though (and while not exactly what you are talking about, is close) is I drizzle the lamb with the sauce after it's cooked and let it set for a few minutes. So there's not actually any "dipping" involved, but yeah, it's a separate step so far. Imperfect though it may be.

The problem I ran into was even though the way I did it on the pork was "all in one", the pork was marinating in it for a while, which changed the dymanics of what I was doing. Since the crown won't be marinating it, I had to break it apart.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is cooking down the cherries and invocating that into the glaze, but I worry that it would thin the glaze a little too much at that point. Some form of a gelling agent might do the trick, but at this point in thinking this through I'm just throwing darts at a wall.

 

[Jeekinz]

I make a sauce for duck or pork that includes creme de cassis, sugar and seeded/halved grapes. I use about 2 cups of cassis to 3/4-1 cup of sugar.....something like that. I add the grapes and let it reduce down. Made candy once-lol

It's not as sweet as it sounds and goes very well with the two meats. I always wanted to make it a little more savory.

I think the more the cherries cook, the thicker the sauce will be. I would try the sauce and fresh cherries before adding a thickener. Corn starch may work if you needed it. Make a slurry with some sauce in a coffee mug first.

 

[Poppinfresh]

Turned out alright. I ran into a bit of a snag in that I didn't have enough balsamic for the recipe, so I ended up cutting it with some red wine vinegar. Not really happy with what resulted in that, but fortunately it didn't detract too much from what I was going for.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I made a crown pork roast a while back (as seen in my avatar and as a posted picture on this site). But instead of making a glaze to put on it, I let the natural meat flavor dominate after marinating in a citrus based marinade. The citrus was mild and didn't call attention to itself. Rather, it enhanced the natural pork flavor.

Lamb is much like pork, but with a slight gaminess reminiscant of venison, or goat. The meat works well with many fo the same herbs, spices, and fruity flavors as does pork. And the crown roast shape allows you to place a force-meat, stuffing, or fruity filliing on top. I used fried rice with a hint of 5-spice powder and mandarin oranges on top of my crown roast. I also cooked my roast between a divided bed of charcoal with apple-wood, again to enhance, not overpower. Bring the lamb up to your desired temperature with a meat thermometer telling you when it's done and you almost can't mess this meal up.

And the longer rib-bones of the lamb provide such drama to the dish.

I believe that I'm too late for the meal as you have already made it. But file this info in the back of your mind, or in a file to use for future versions of this classic roast.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North