Lamb Chops & Polenta

And the Valentine's Day winner is... Lamb Chops and Polenta! I paired it with a salad with strawberries & walnuts. This was so good!!! Definitely a keeper for a special dinner. The polenta was just delicious. For those of you who haven't had it, it is basically Italian grits. I had a second helping. I had to do lamb chops because when I got to Sam's Club at 4:45 on Valentine's Day there were no racks to be had! I was mentally wed to lamb so I got the chops. This complicated the meal a little because I like to marinate the chops. Here's the recipe:

Lamb Chop Marinade
1 Tbs dijon mustard
1 Tbs low sodium soy sauce
1 Tbs red wine
fresh ground pepper
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme

It marinated for about 30 minutes at room temperature while I got the ingredients together for the rest of the meal. Prepping for this meal is very important because timing is a little tricky. Here I will admit that since I didn't get started until 6:00 I had to enlist Jack's help with getting the salad made. He's a good Valentine :-)! The recipe for the polenta is below. Get everything measured out before hand.

Polenta
2 cups of chicken broth
2 tsp butter
1/2 cup uncooked polenta (I used organic yellow corn grits from the Farmer's Market - such a bargain!)
salt if you are using low sodium broth
pepper
1/4 cup of cream
2 Tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese

Bring broth and butter to a boil. Stir in polenta and season with salt and pepper. Let simmer for 5 minutes until  thick and creamy. Stir in the cream & cheese. Taste for seasoning.

Sauce 
1/2 cup prepared veal stock from demi glace
1/2 cup red wine
pepper
2 Tbs cream
1 Tbs butter

Deglaze pan with red wine. Let simmer 3 minutes. Add veal stock. Let simmer 5 minutes. Stir in cream & butter.

Easy, peasy, right? The trick was getting the timing right. The lamb, polenta & sauce all needed to cook at the same time so that everything was hot at once. I'm probably overcomplicating things here but here is how I think thru a meal ahead of time. Like an athlete I envision the race:

Marinate the lamb.
Make salad dressing (raspberry vinaigrette).
Wash the greens and strawberries.
Toast the walnuts.
Measure out all your ingredients for your recipes.
Make salad but don't dress it.
Put a plate behind the eye you will cook the chops on so it will get warm.
Heat an ovenproof skillet (NOT non-stick) with 1 Tbs olive oil.
Turn on stock for polenta & water for demi glace.
Brown chops on both sides.
Put chops on plate and drain off oil from bottom of the pan.
Put chops back in the pan and place in oven.
Set timer for 4-5 minutes based on how well done you want your lamb.
Put polenta in stock and demi glace in water stirring both. Reduce heat on polenta to low when boiling.
Remove chops from the oven. Wrap a towel or place a hot pad on handle so you won't burn yourself. It's easy to forget it's hot when you have so much going on! Place the chops on the plate and cover loosely with foil.
Over medium high heat deglaze pan with red wine.
Stir polenta.
Add stock to sauce, season with pepper and continue to cook down.
Put your dinner plates in the warm oven.
Add cream & cheese to the polenta and taste for seasoning. Try not to swoon because it tastes so good!
Add cream, butter to sauce
Dress your salad.
Plate your meal - polenta, chops, then spoon on sauce.
Enjoy & refrain from licking your plate!