Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Seems odd... Southern food / soul food is totally the "in thing" among white hipster woke millenials...

And it *is* Austin, after all ;-)

Isn't that "cultural appropriation," or something equally nefarious?

The ‘Sooner Swirl,’ Norman’s iconic cocktail, will ‘get you where you want to go’





The Mont’s bar area. A Taylor Model 342 Frozen Uncarbonated Beverage Freezer, it holds margarita in the left chamber and sangria in the right. And contrary to what one might think, there is no middle spout that pulls from both sides like a soft-serve frozen yogurt machine.

No, when you order a Sooner Swirl, it receives a little more care than that. The Mont’s bartenders are precise: Four pours from each side, alternated, and with the glass tilted just right.

“They’ve perfected it, how to pour it, how to tilt the glass,” says Susan Oakley, a former employee who now is a game-day regular. “It’s also cool because people can ask for more margarita or more sangria. Some people would order a margarita with a splash of sangria.”

The Mont is a Norman landmark, situated on the corner of Classen Boulevard and Boyd Street, just off...

possibly 09/18/2021?

How I grill racks of lamb...

I've been working on this for quite some time, and thought I'd give my own primer on how I cook lamb. I think I've got a pretty foolproof method.

• First is the prep. I usually buy the Frenched lamb racks from Costco. But I find that they always have the massive chunk of fat running down the front. If you look at this picture, you can see the big leftover globs of fat. Unless those are perfectly rendered, IMHO it takes away from the eating of the lamb. So I start by trimming ALL of that off, and continuing the Frenching of the bones all the way down to where that big fat cap was removed. You can see in my below picture that I end up more with the "lamb lollipop" look once all that fat is removed. Note that I leave the rack WHOLE for the cooking process--I don't slice into individual chops until the end. 
• Then is seasoning/marinade. I've done a number of things, and there are LOTS of options. Often I'll hit it with olive oil, Santa Maria seasoning, and herbes de Provence. Last night I used olive oil and "Papa Charlie's Greek Rub"
  "Papa Charlie's Greek Rub" made by John Henry, which was excellent. Truth is that you can hit it with a lot of seasoning and still come out great, because much like a tri tip, brisket, prime rib, etc, you're seasoning it whole. So the seasoning only sits on the outer crust, and it's almost difficult to overseason.
• Depending on the rub, feel free to leave it in the fridge in a ziplock for a couple hours before grilling to let all the flavors come together.
• Set up the grill for two-zone cooking. One side running very hot for searing, and the other side either indirect or with the burners turned off. 
• This is important, but mainly for looks: Apply foil over the bones. You don't need to do the bones individually, just wrap a big piece of foil that covers all 8-9 bones as a whole. This keeps the bones from charring. The good news is that enough heat comes through to cook off anything that didn't come off the bone when Frenching the rack, so even if there's a little membrane or something else left on the bone, it'll be dry to the touch after cooking.
• Sear the lamb over high heat direct about 3 minutes top, then 3 minutes bottom of the rack. Enough to get a crust, but not burn. Depending on the heat coming off your grill and the height of your grate, you can adjust a little more or less to the desired color.
• Once seared, move the lamb over to the indirect side. Insert a remote thermometer right into the center of mass. It's easiest to do this if you insert it from the side of the rack, as if you go in from the top or bottom of the rack it's tough to tell whether you've stopped the probe at center mass. If you don't have one, I *highly* recommend having one or more sitting around. I personally like the Thermoworks DOT as a reasonably-priced version. If you sign up for their mailing list, they occasionally have 20% off for open box versions/etc, so you can save a little money.
• When the temperature reaches about 125-127 degrees, pull the lamb off the grill, wrap it tightly with foil, and let it rest at least 10 minutes. 
• Cut into individual chops (or two-chop sections if you're into that sort of thing; I'm not one to judge) and serve. 

If done this way, you should hit perfect medium rare every time. And unlike cutting first and grilling the chops individually, it's a lot easier to time it properly without overcooking. 

Shown here with some grilled asparagus that I managed to do without overcooking for once, and my wife made a nice Greek veggie salad. 

I'll take a plate just like the one in the pic

I'll take a plate just like the one in the pic

Maybe not as much asparagus. Smelly pee and all that. 

I find rack of lamb to be one of the easiest meats to nail for doneness.    You've summarized it well.  It seems to have an aura about it that people find it to be intimidating.

I love Ina's rub and prep for lamb. In fact I served that for some of our fellow posters a few years ago.

Just looked it up. Looks like Ina's rub would be freakin' delicious. I'll have to give that a shot.

As for nailing for doneness, I think it's very easy if you use a thermometer. If you're trying to cook to time rather than temp, or if you're trying to cook to "feel", it's much harder. Lamb is a much smaller cut of meat than, say, prime rib, so the time window between undercooking and overcooking is very narrow. Ina's recipe says exactly 20 minutes at 450 degrees, but that's assuming your oven is accurate. It also that your racks are the same size as what Ina tested on, which is difficult because Ina doesn't say what size she recommends, and there can be a lot of variation, particularly between Australian/New Zealand lamb (grass fed and smaller) vs American lamb (often grain-finished and larger). And of course it assumes that they were trimmed the same way, etc. I.e. if you trim lamb to "lollipop" size the way I do, it will naturally cook faster than if it's trimmed the way Ina shows it in her Food Network recipe, where the fat cap is left on. 

And this is especially important when you grill rather than roasting in an oven, because it's a lot harder to pick a "precise" temp on the grill, especially if you do it the way I do it first and sear it directly over high heat. I can't translate Ina's recipe of 450 for exactly 20 minutes to a grill where I sear it over ~600 degrees for 5-6 minutes total and then put it indirect at an unknown temp. Granted, Ina's recipe is for oven-roasted lamb, so that's fine, but if you like the taste of searing over direct heat, then you need to know up front the temperature you're trying to hit. 

I wish more recipes online would not only convert to measure ingredients by weight instead of volume [where appropriate], and would convert to giving you the exact internal temperature to cook to for appropriate doneness than by time. Recipes assume that home cooks don't have a precise scale or a proper leave-in oven thermometer or even an instant-read thermometer, so they want to make it "easy" instead. 

But yes, with a thermometer you can hit perfect doneness on lamb very easily. 

If I'm spending $14/lb on racks of Australian lamb, cutting away and discarding big portions of the fat cap and obviously some of that weight being paid for is bone, I'm going to use the technology necessary to make sure I don't f&#@ it up and undercook/overcook it. Especially since we were having company over and I'm potentially being judged if I do it wrong.