My Little Lamb Chop

My goodness there are few things in this world tastier than a garlicky, crusty lamb chop. John returned from a long weekend in New York, and with Nathan away visiting his grandparents in Florida, it was just the two of us for din. In other words, a nice night for lamb chops.

I either buy them or trim them into two-chop pieces. That way, after grilling (and carving), each individual chop has one crusty and one tender side, the perfect combination of textures and flavors, I think. I smear them with a paste of minced garlic, dried herbs, and olive oil, as well as a generous sprinkle of coarse salt. On a hot grill they go, approximately 6 minutes/side for rosy.

I made up a potato-eggplant-tomato gratin, which was fine but not lovely enough to produce a recipe for (thin slices of potato and eggplant, layered with a chunky tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese, baked until tender. Eggplant was quite bitter, despite salting, rinsing, and drying it, that was the biggest problem. So it goes. For excellent tips on how to prepare eggplant for cooking, see here.)

One delicious flavor note in the gratin was the generous grating of fresh nutmeg I included – if I haven’t said it before, it’s very worth grating nutmeg yourself. It’s also very worth experimenting with nutmeg in your favorite savory dishes – it’s my “secret ingredient,” hiding sneakily and deliciously in potatoes, tomato sauces, omelets, chicken broth-based soups, pork chops, and grated over spinach and kale.