Lamb Shoulder Chops and Roasted Curried Cauliflower

Before I get to the pictures of naked food caught in compromising positions, I’m going to relate a short story.

As I’ve written about many times, I lived in France for a couple of years in the early 90’s. A couple of years after I left, I went back to visit some friends, ending up staying with some of them for a few days at a mutual friend’s house in the country — an old house, built in a classic way — and an important feature was the fireplace. It was designed to be able to cook in it.

I’ll never forget this because it goes to the elegant simplicity of what food can be. And so one late afternoon we got a bunch of lamb chops. I can’t recall what cut but they were maybe 1/2" thick, but large cuts otherwise. And I can’t recall whether we seasoned them with any salt & pepper either. But what I recall vividly is how we prepped them after the cooking. We simply took cloves of fresh garlic, sliced them in half, and as as the hot lamb steaks came off the fire (direct flame), we rubbed them down with the fresh garlic.

I’ll never forget it.

This is a bit more involved, but the process reminded me of that, so I thought I’d share. As always, click for quality images.

All Ready for the Fire

So these are grassfed lamb chops from the shoulder. I got them at Whole Foods (yea, I go there sometimes, now). To the side is a simple deal with olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic crushed & chopped, fresh rosemary chopped & crushed and some dried thyme. I almost never do marinades in the sense of letting the meat sit in one for hours. Other than a few select dishes, I like my meat to be meat, and sauce to be sauce. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to try and change the core flavor of the meat.

So, the lamb went on the hottest grill I could come up with and after the first turn, cooked side was dealt some of the oil & herbs. Repeat. In the end, top side gets another treatment.

But first, how about the side dish? Some time back I was intrigued by a recipe from Darya Pino at SummerTomato.

I’ve resisted publishing this recipe for months because I was worried it was too simple for an entire blog post. But every time I cook it for someone (which I do all the time because it is so easy and delicious) they ask me for the recipe so they can try it themselves. Now I can just send them a link.

Well, I’m adding this to my list of fine cauliflower dishes. Here’s a couple I’ve done before: Au Gratin and Burnt Almond Meal (used to be bread crumbs).

So the recipe is on Darya’s blog. Super simple. Here’s how it looks before heading into the oven.

Cook Me

And so I did. Here’s the final deal, lamb and veggie together, finally.

Eat Me

And so I did.