Lamb Rack - Sous Vide

I would recommend that you cook it sous vide with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary tossed in the bag. Core temperature of 134.5 °F / 57 °C for medium-rare. Then remove and sear the rack, slice, and season to taste.

If you really want it to be awesome, try searing it with a final deep-frying step. You'll get an awesome crust, and no it won't make the meat greasy.

@Chris: Thanks! Timing suggestions? Whole garlic cloves, or minced? I used my wok + outdoor burner and some peanut oil to deep-fry the porchetta I did on xmas (out in the snow, heh), so I can certainly oblige on the deep frying

Crush the garlic so that the cells are ruptured, which will boost the garlic's aromas immensely. I would say 2 cloves of garlic, enough olive oil to coat the meat and form a small pool at the bottom of the bag, and about half a sprig of rosemary, and maybe two or three sprigs of thyme.

@chris: Does 6-8 hours seem excessive?

Bah! Turns out I'll have to go out hunting for Lamb tomorrow... vacuum sealed bag from the store was nasty smelling

Johan_Edstrom_5586

For a store bought kinda over fatty lamb I usually trim the fat, deep fry (Thanks once again @Chris) cook at 55 or so, use a thermocouple or go 54 for 2h, then finish in the fryer, toss with herbs, rest, slice serve.

trev_teich

This is what we use at the restraunt. Vest lamb I have tasted so far.

http://purebredlamb.com/

@neogenix 6 to 8 hours for a rack of lamb? Far too long. Oxidation will have started to cause the lamb to taste slightly mutton-like. It depends on the size of the rack itself of course, but 90 minutes is usually adequate.

Let us know how it turns out

So, picked up 2 more racks today, and will be giving them a try tomorrow. I'll post pictures when I'm all done!

Post some as you prep and seal picture too, I like seeing new methods and ideas from other people!

Question: So, I was thinking about doing the rack, whipped potatoes with a demi-glace of some sort, any suggestions to the contrary?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Pickles tend to go well with whip and demi glace, otherwise it is how I like em.

People like mint jelly with lamb, I don't like mint so I usually make a Ttzatziki sauce since I am a sucker for Gyros...

Update:

So, I figured I'd go hog wild. I've gone ahead and invited a group of folks from work to come over and eat for lunch on wednesday... The two racks are being prepped this evening, as per @Chris's suggestions, and then just working out how I'm going to do the whipped taters, and the demi-glace (I've not done either, ever, although I've done mashed potatoes, if that counts), and then some dutch oven bread to go with it.

I'll post some pics as the whole event unfolds, and some prep pics along the way.

Update:

So, the date has been set for 11am, on thursday, and I have a herd of folks coming to the house. Currently the menu is going to have a light salad of some sort (still need to plan this one), whipped potatoes, sous vide lamb racks (as per @Chris's suggestion, prepped and fry finished), a no-knead dutch oven bread, and a demi glace (which btw, you guys really need to do a course module on!). After polling the folks, 1/2 seem to want medium, and the other 1/2 haven't replied, so they're getting medium rare :P Why do so many folks here seem to be keen on medium steak/lamb?

The ingredients have mostly been collected, missing a handful of things from here and there, but the lamb's been prepped. It'll go into the sous vide probably the morning-of, or possibly tomorrow night, depending on what my time looks like in the morning.

Attached are some progress pics. The crushed garlic, thyme sprigs, and rosemary are visible.

eliaspontikos

I have a question regarding garlic. I read somewhere that you should not use fresh garlic for sous vide cooking as it gives an off taste. Has anyone experienced this firsthand? By the way how did the lamb turn out...looks good in the pics.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I haven't had any bad experiences with fresh garlic. I use it pretty frequently actually. I suppose that the temp and length of time your cooking could make a difference though.

http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

@Elias I can't say I've had a problem with sous vide garlic either. Do you know where you read this?

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Baldwin?

Brendan_Lee_56950

The wording in that is kind of confusing to me. I think he means to say that raw garlic bagged with vegetables can be off-putting since they are being cooked at higher temps but the way he writes it makes it sounds like garlic period is that way. Either way, I disagree and have had no trouble with garlic at all.

lelferreira

Seijoed said:

Baldwin?
http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

I saw the same thing as well. I was a little skeptic since I've seen many recipes using garlic from other people.

I've probably done 30+ bags with garlic in... no problems yet

eliaspontikos

Thanks for the comments, nothing like getting people's first hand experience to answer a question...another reason of why this website fantastic.

Good luck, I have finished carnitas and hamburgers in the fryer, I think it's my new favorite searing method, I might try a steak thursday...

Jack_Mayer_85396

I love lamb and made it for the Christmas Eve dinner. I live in Dallas and the Central Market store there was running a nice sale on domestic (Colorado) racks with the cap on. Lots of trim loss when I prepped them (sorry, don't have the pre-pics) but here is what they looked like before cooking. Didn't utilize SV this time but it was the best lamb I've ever done! Will definitely try the SV approach next time. Here are the racks prepped but pre-seared (assuming I can figure out how to add the pic). Thanks to all for the wonderful information and willingness to share your expertise, especially Chris and the CS team!

Jack_Mayer_85396

The ability to add liquids/oil is what has me seriously, seriously contemplating a chamber sealer. As it was we did a sear, let the racks cool a bit so we could handle and then applied a couple of different crust treatments before a final roast in a hot oven.

Chamber sealer has taken my cooking to a whole new level (then sous vide another one still) The ability to seal liquids and infuse things is amazing, now that I have one I wonder why I didn't get one earlier (I know why PRICE was why) I got a vac master VP215 for 800 dollars during a holiday sale, well worth it over the long run, I used it today to sous vide soup by vaccing potatoes and cream.

@Mason, where?!?!?

@Jack, Looks great, I read a fair bit online, and opted to keep most of the fat on mine, but I did trim some. What'd you use for herbs / etc...