Lamb rack roasted with a rosemary and Parmesan crust, cooked pink in the middle, is a deliciously juicy roast joint encased in crispy topping. Two roasting methods provided, both with excellent results!
What is ‘French trimmed’ rack of lamb?
A rack of lamb is a lean and tender loin attached to eight ribs, usually sufficient to feed two or three people. As it is effectively a side of the animal, the ribs intersperse muscle tissue, fat and tendons.
Unlike pork baby ribs for instance, lamb ribs are generally sniffed at and so for presentation and ease of carving, butchers will trim all the meat and sinew from between the ribs.
What we get in the shops is a preternaturally clean, bony joint, like a partly ossified palaeontological find. Old school trend had the sticking out ribs adorned with paper frills. Thankfully that has long gone out of fashion.
Does lamb rack have to be Frenched?
I used to believe Frenching enhanced the lamb rack experience, plus if you paid for an expensive cut, you wanted it to be presented in the best form.
The French trim superiority myth was shattered rather spectacularly one day when the Weather Man was dispatched to the butcher’s.
As the tale goes, when asked if the rack is to be French trimmed, he hesitantly said ‘no’, sensibly thinking he was going to be short-changed on an expensive meat cut if it gets trimmed. Coming back home triumphantly, he was met with scorn and scolding for his supposed error of judgement.
And guess what? Lamb ribs are unfairly disdained: the otherwise French trimmed bits off the bone are a bit fatty but quite delicious. So back then I had to humbly renounce and apologise. Admittedly though, it was serendipity rather than wisdom.
So I do now try to buy untrimmed rack, with the exception of when the lamb is getting late in the season. But it’s entirely the matter of taste and I’ll understand most people like to have it neat and easily carveable. Hence the recipe below features a trimmed rack after all.
How to prepare the lamb rack
As with most meats, it is prudent to salt it as early as possible. As Samin Nosrat advises, that means as soon as you have brought the meat from the shops. If frozen, try to thaw it a couple of days ahead of roasting so it sits, salted and uncovered, in the fridge, becoming tenderer and more flavoursome.
Salt aside, you need to make the crust stick to the meat, awkward as it is, with the bones sticking out. In order to facilitate it, score the top surface with a sharp knife, through the fat but not down to the meat.
If you have a roasting rack, or a small cake rack, sit the lamb rack (or is it too many racks?) on it for all the manipulations as well as the roasting. Next step is to smear a mixture of honey and mustard all over the meat, on both sides. That’s for the flavour as well as for the cling factor.
How to make the herby crust topping
I love the combination of rosemary and lemon zest, with an umami boost from Parmesan. You can chop the rosemary needles (discard the stems) with a sharp knife, as finely as you can. Another way is to put them briefly through a spice (or a disused coffee) grinder with a handful of salt, in which case obviously adjust the overall salt content.
The rosemary powder will now be mixed with dried breadcrumbs, Panko or homemade, Parmesan and zest grated from a lemon. You can mix it all with your fingers or you can use a mini blender/chopper to blitz the lot, in which case you needn't chop the rosemary in the first place.
Use it to cover the lamb rack, skin side only, and press the crust down with your fingers to make sure it sticks.
Perfectly roasted rack of lamb: two methods
Rack is the most delicate part of lamb and the finest cut. As such, I’d advise to cook it as pink as your diners can accept. It will be juicy, tender and flavoursome. And if cooked according to either of the below methods, there will be no pink juices oozing out which absurdly put some people off.
The first is roasting at low oven temperature for a relatively longer time, in order to achieve even doneness and get the target internal temperature spot on. The other is shorter but less precise, using the weight of the meat joint as the timing indicator.
Cooking at low temperature
Even better, cook it in a very low oven followed by a high temperature blast, like reverse searing. That method delivers absolutely outstanding, perfectly pink (and as rare or medium as you want it) juicy roast, worthy of the expensive cut, the result not dissimilar to sous-vide in fine dining. It does require the use of digital meat thermometer to take risky guesswork out of the roast.
The oven should be on between 80C/176F and 110C/230F. You can adjust that temperature whilst the lamb is cooking, to speed up or slow down the roasting process. An 8-bone rack of lamb should take about 40-60 minutes to reach the desired 50-54C (122-130F), depending on the oven temperature and the initial temperature of the meat so it's important to bring it to room temperature before cooking.
After it's reached what is lower end or rare cookedness, it will need a blast in high oven, to get it to how well cooked you want it and to get the crust, well, crusty.
But when cooked like this, it doesn't need resting apart from when it's waiting for the oven to heat up for the final blast.
Cooking at standard temperature
If you don't have a digital probe or simply don't like the sound of the method above (though you're missing out, I warn you), cook it according to the weight of the meat and it will still be delicious.
Depending on the weight of a rack, it should be roasted for 15 minutes per pound of weight in a medium oven, following a ten-minute blast at a higher heat. All ovens are different, but I would start off at maximum, only to turn it down to about 180C/350F after the ten minutes.
This cooking method requires the rack to rest for at least ten to fifteen minutes before carving the rack into cutlets, arranged in a fan on the plates and adorned with rosemary sprigs if there are any left.
More lamb recipes
Lamb loin, or cannon of lamb, wrapped in prosciutto with rosemary and thyme, roasted in low temperature oven. The finest dining easily made!
Rack of lamb roasted medium rare with slices of grilled pineapple, a perfect combination of sweet and spicy. Also, pineapple facilitates digestion of meat protein.
Roast leg of lamb on the bone, cooked medium, pinkish in the middle and with a crispy skin, is the perfect Easter Sunday lunch. Half a leg for four, whole leg for a crowd, just adjust the cooking time per pound of weight.
More herby crusted meat recipes
Spring lamb chump chops seared in a hot pan and topped with a pillow of herby crumbs. Light, fresh and delicate in flavour herb crusted lamb chops, the best with new season lamb.
Lamb cutlets with herb crust, or rack of lamb cut into individual little chops. Toss the cutlets in herb and Parmesan breadcrumbs and fry for two minutes on each side.
Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish of breaded fried pork cutlet; there is also chicken version called torikatsu. My tonkatsu recipe uses flattened pork medallion coated in panko breadcrumbs with tomato and Worcestershire sauce flavour.