Frenched Lamb as Religious Experience

Given our indecisiveness, we've discovered that it's best to go out for the day's grocery haul with a primitive plan in place. Today's pre-grocery preparation consisted of the usual perusal of the NY Times's cooking section, The Silver Spoon (TSS) hardcover, and some of our favorite YouTubers latest creations. 

I should say that Fridays present an altogether more complicated (but exciting!) dilemma - wine pairing! In some respects this makes our lives simpler, as our mutual desire for a bold red in this instance narrowed our choice of protein. My mention of "steak", as it tends to do, immediately piqued her interest - the familiar carnivorous dilation of her pupils. However, the YouTube images of a slow roasted rack of lamb I had seen earlier in the week again came to the forefront. 

I broached the idea gently, and soon we were off in a more directed and fervent search for the ideal lamb recipe. It was in this search that I learned of a "frenched" rack - distinguished by the exposed thin bone of the ribs. Some were preferential to the un-frenched rack - the additional layer of fat lending itself to impossibly tender meat and mitigating the need for oil. Since we often prefer to cook with latent fat rather than additional oil, we (finally) left the apartment thinking we'd take a non-Franco approach to the night. 

This was easy to say until we laid our eyes on the Frenched Rack of Grassfed Lamb at our beloved butcher. The sight of these delicately carved ribs, I'd propose, could have even the most staunch Francophobe proclaiming "celui-là, s'il vous plaît." 

With the centerpiece in place, the excitement for the night ahead raged, and with it the correlated loosening of our wallets: before we knew it, we were generously gathering chanterelles and maitakes, recently reminded of the particular joy of feasting on wild mushrooms, simply cooked. 

With now complete surrender to the French, we agreed upon a Haut-Medoc and were off. On this day, (perhaps facilitated by the aperitif), I was invited into the kitchen. I sliced tomatoes and basil, cubed Halloumi, mortared (and pestelled!) marinades, all with the apprehension of a young daughter finally allowed access to family heirlooms. It was both a joy and a terrible fear to have such a direct and permanent effect on the night's every bite. 

Cooking the lamb of course included the requisite anxiety and second-guessing always found when cooking a pricey and beautiful cut of meat. After 20 minutes in the oven, we were faced with an uncooperative thermometer reading, just below what we were looking for for a perfect medium-rare (125C). As we attempted to will the meter to give us those last few degrees we accepted that we'd be forced to make the never-easy and potentially-night-ruining decision as to whether to tempt the gods and return the fated cut to the oven. 

After some healthy argument (and last second prayers) we sacrificed the meat back to the fire, a decision racked with so much ambivalence that I imagine it could only be matched by a hypothetical mother's choice of which of her children to save from a burning building. This was a life and death decision for us, and I was relieved to be making it with the only other person who could understand its weight.

It should now be said that neither of us (as far as our culinary memory could recollect) had ever feasted on a rack of lamb. It should now also be said that both of us will be frequently feasting on racks of lamb going forward. The internal-temperature related anxieties were immediately expunged as we cut effortlessly into the rack, exposing a beautifully crimsoned and subtly flowing interior. 

Admittedly acquiesced by the bold Medoc, I experienced bites that reminded me of perfectly cooked filet mignon (a further descent into the French!), but with a far more complex flavor - sweet and perfectly gamey. Our love affair with lamb has truly blossomed during the unique constraints of quarantine, and ranks (an albeit distant) second only to the resurrected love affair of my partner and I. Marrying these two loves were moments where I had no choice but to grab her own tender forearm between my fore-fingers, gripping her as both a means to brace the ecstasy inherent to some of these bites, and as a means to (perhaps electrostatically?) share this ecstasy with her. 

Frenched Lamb as religious experience - a new highlight in an already flourescently yellow-coated culinary journey. 

Recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019078-rosemary-rack-of-lamb-with-crushed-potatoes