Grilled Lamb Breasts

I had never worked with lamb breast before. Matt likes to buy meat from the UGA meat sale and this was one of the meats he bought. I actually thought they were ribs at first, but read the packaging and found out it was lamb breast. It looked very similar to ribs, so I decided to season it up and grill it as I would ribs.

I seasoned the breasts liberally with some salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin and crushed red pepper. Because rosemary and thyme work well with lamb, I chopped some up and threw it in as well. I also decided to experiment with some ground cardamom. Cardamom is a very fragrant and sweet spice, like nutmeg. A little goes a long way. I thought it would be a nice balance with all the smoky, spicy seasoning and herbs though. I tossed the lamb with some olive oil as well and threw it on the grill. Medium heat, a few mins each side. These ribs were so flavorful. And the seasoning worked so great together. I would say the two stars were the fresh rosemary and sweet cardamom.

A note about lamb breast, it is hard to cut! I couldn't slice each rib because some of them had a spine that ran along the bottom. A butchers knife would be great here, but since we didn't have one, I just followed the bones. So my rib cuts came out a bit zig-zagged, but that didn't matter. These were tasty, cut beautifully or not.

Lamb Sandwich with a Creamy Dill Sauce

Matt absolutely looooved this dish. I started to wonder if it's because he loves lamb so much, or he just really liked the sandwich altogether. Either way I was happy!

When I was at Sam's Club with my mom, I stumbled upon these beautiful ciabatta rolls. I have had a hard time trying to find individual-sized ciabatta rolls. At Kroger, they just have these huge ciabatta breads - so you have to cut them up into serving sizes. But Sam's Club had it baked in perfect sizes. 8 rolls for only $3...I was excited, not gonna lie.  

So to make the sandwich, first start with some lamb. We had a ton of different kind of lamb (lamb arm chops/sirloin chops, etc.). Any of those will work - just cut out the bone. Then pound out the lamb meat with a meat mallet. I pounded it out to about a quarter of an inch thin. Salt and pepper both sides. Then in a skillet over medium-high heat, add some olive oil. Cook the lamb for about 1-2 mins on each side. For the  ciabata roll, slice it in half and season the inside with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Toast the ciabatta roll in the skillet.

For the sauce, I was going for a tzatziki-like sauce. In a bowl, I combined sour cream with some chopped dill, salt, and pepper. And then I thinly sliced a cucumber. On a toasted ciabatta roll, just add a piece of your lamb, some slices of cucumber, and some of that creamy dill sauce. I also added some slices of truffle cheese that I discovered at Sam's Club as well. 

The earthy flavor from the truffle cheese actually paired nicely with the lamb. And the fresh cucumber and dill sauce helped tie everything together. For such a quick and simple sandwich, it was sure packed with tons of flavor.