Double Rib Lamb Chops with Cassoulet of Summer Beans and Rosemary

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you an artistic rendering of my experience in making this dish:


My friend, Jen's, son "Skeeter" (like Prince, Cher, and Madonna before him, he wants his artistic name to be singular) drew this picture for the blog: that's me, and my dog, Jake, having a bit of a hurl; the lamb chops are blue and emitting blue and black rays of death; and, my face is undeniably green upon having smelled the lamb chops when I opened the package. For the record, I did not actually throw up, but it was close.

Here's the deal: I bought my lamb chops from my local Whole Foods, brought them home, and the next day when I opened them? They smelled bad... really bad... almost WORSE THAN TRIPE bad. They were yellow and green, and made my eyes water with their badness.

I'd only bought them the day before, and this particular Whole Foods does really good meat, so I got on the phone immediately with the store and talked to my buddy, Larry, who runs the meat department there. He told me to throw those chops in the trash and get my arse over there pronto so he could take care of it. Not only did he refund my original purchase, he hand-cut new rib chops himself from a fresh rack that had been delivered that morning, and didn't charge me for them.

Yet another benefit of getting to know your vendors, folks. I'm positive this store would've handled it right, regardless (they've always been great to deal with in my experience), but I felt taken care of, and that was a nice boost, considering the stench nearly burned my corneas completely off my eyes. And, for those of you who might ask, yes, they conducted a full inspection to find out what caused it, but I don't know what the end result was. I've bought other meat there since then, and everything's been great. I am relatively certain this was a fluke, and they handled the situation above and beyond my exepctations and better than my previous experiences with other food vendors. So, yay for Whole Foods. Say what you will about them (and people DO have their opinions), they get a check-plus in the customer service column on this one. Thanks, Larry.

Now, on to the dish. This post will be on the shorter side, because there aren't that many steps to making this dish, which means *AHEM* that maybe some of you might want to try making this yourselves. I did one short-cut, which I rarely, if ever, do with these dishes, but taking the lamb situation into account, I thought it was the right thing to do. More on that later.

Let's start with the beans. I bought and soaked some dried marrow beans and adzuki beans overnight, then put them into separate pots for cooking. Each pot got some chicken stock, water, leek, carrot and onion, and then I brought it to a simmer, skimming off the junk that rose to the top:

I simmered them for about an hour, when they were tender. I let them cool off while in their cooking liquid, and I prepared the other beans -- blanched green beans (double the amount the recipe calls for because I couldn't find yellow wax beans), fava beans, and soybeans.

It's at this point that I realized I'm supposed to mix the beans in the lamb quick sauce that I'd also just made. However, even though the lamb bones I used for the sauce came from another source, I was feeling superstitious and weirded out by the rancid chops, so I threw away the lamb quick sauce and instead reduced 2 C of veal stock until there was about 1/3 cup left and it was thicker and almost glaze-like.

I drained the marrow beans and adzuki beans and mixed them into the reduced veal stock, then added the other beans I'd just blanched. To that, I added tomato diamonds, brunoise, and salt and pepper and kept it warm on the stovetop while I cooked the lamb:

Now that the beans were done, it's time for the lamb chops. Here they are, in their fresh, non-rancid glory:

I put them in the skillet with a little canola oil and cooked them over medium-high heat for 4 minutes to brown them. I turned them and cooked them for another 3 minutes, then turned them on their sides to brown the edges, as well:

I removed them from the pan, drained the oil, added butter to the pan, and returned the chops to the melted butter. I topped the lamb chops with garlic and thyme, basted them with a bit of the melted butter, and put them in a 375-degree oven for 5 minutes:

I took them out of the oven and allowed them to rest for a few minutes while I got the plates ready. First in the dish were the beans, then I topped them with a lamb chop:

I have to say, that even though I'm sure this would've been great with the lamb quick sauce, and that it was very likely the lamb sauce would've been fine from a quality and non-rottenness perspective, the reduced veal stock was a great substitute... and I had no reservations whatsoever about it. It gave the beans a hearty, creamy quality, and bolstered the lamb-ness of the lamb. The beans were absolutely delicious, and the lamb was so tender and perfect, and almost as creamy as the beans.

If you have The French Laundry Cookbook, you may notice that I skipped the step about adding the rosemary and the rosemary oil. That's because I hate rosemary. I don't know it this is the same for my fellow cilantro loathers, but rosemary has a similar effect as cilantro does on my palate. Eating even one little leaf of it is like chewing on a giant Christmas tree and it makes everything taste and smell like one of those taxicab air fresheners. So, I avoid it whenever and wherever I can. Rosemary wasn't always this way for me, but when my food allergies shifted a year or so ago, the rosemary thing came in full force, so no rosemary for me, or my guests. No one seemed to miss it, and no one uttered the words, "Wow, Carol... this dish really sucks... if only you'd added some rosemary maybe I could stomach it." Not even close. In fact, it was so good, after we finished the beans, we gnawed whatever last morsels of meat we could get off the bone. Classy all the way.

Special Note: We've only got a few months left of French Laundry at Home, and you'll notice I've done a Q&A with Michael Ruhlman and my fishmonger, and there will be others to come (particularly, Susie Heller, and my favorite farmer). However, I thought it also might be fun to do a Q&A with me. Actually, a few of you have suggested it in recent emails, and after thinking about it, I agree. So, feel free to use the comments section or send me an email with any questions you may have -- food-related, non-food-related, whatever -- just wanted to give you guys an opportunity to ask me whatever it is you might want to know. I'll answer your questions in a "Q&A with Carol" post in a few weeks.

Up Next: French Laundry at Home Extra: Q&A with Susie Heller

Resources:
Lamb and produce from Whole Foods
Dried beans from TPSS Co-op
Thyme from my garden

Music to Cook By: Roxy Music; Avalon and OMD; Crush. This summer, more than any other, has made me nostalgic for the music of my teenage years... especially when I cook. When I'm in the car, I want new music, but when I'm at home, I crave the old stuff. I still have the worn out cassette tape that had each of these albums on one side. Of course, I have the MP3s now on iTunes, but I'm keeping the tape because I remember the day my friend, Molly, and I made those tapes, taping from one tape deck to another, releasing the pause button on one deck and pressing record on the other and trying to time it perfectly. Man, I'm old. Don't even get me started about how we used to hold a casette tape recorder up to the speakers on my record player to make tapes that way. I'm downright jurassic with that crap.

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