WEEK 3: YOUR BEST GRILLED LAMB

Grilled Blade Chops over Greek Salad

Photography by Sarah Shatz

    BY HELEN | SERVES 2

A&M: This dish is fresh and intensely flavored: summer grilling at its finest. Helen advises “aggressive” seasoning throughout, and we heartily agree. She also pointed out: “Any feta will do here (although a mildly creamy Bulgarian feta is especially nice), but please do buy block feta and crumble it rather than buying the precrumbled stuff.”

    SALAD

    1 large, ripe tomato

    1 hot house cucumber, peeled

    1 green bell pepper (or red or yellow)

    ½ cup sliced red onion

    1 tablespoon capers (rinsed if salt packed)

    ½ cup Kalamata olives

    Pinch of dried oregano

    Salt and freshly ground black pepper

    3 tablespoons good-quality extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving

    2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

    4 firm, fresh stuffed grape leaves

    ½ cup crumbled feta

    LAMB

    2 lamb blade chops

    Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

    Dried oregano

    Ground coriander

1. At least an hour before you plan to eat, cut the tomato, cucumber, and bell pepper into bite-size pieces. Toss in a large bowl with the red onion, capers, olives, and oregano (don’t overdo the oregano; it gets overwhelming quickly), aggressively season with salt and pepper, and dress with the olive oil and red wine vinegar. Allow to sit at room temperature while you cook the lamb.
2. Twenty minutes before you want to grill, pull the chops out of the fridge and heat the grill to medium-high. Season on both sides with salt, pepper, oregano, and coriander. Really press it in. Grill the chops until nicely charred on the outside and delightfully pink (medium-rare) on the inside, 4 to 6 minutes per side.
3. Divide the salad between two plates, and add 2 stuffed grape leaves to each. Crumble half the feta over each plate. Place the hot-from-the-grill lamb over each salad, and drizzle with olive oil to finish. Enjoy!

Photography by Sarah Shatz

    TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

    Serve this with fresh pita and plenty of Greek yogurt.

        Helen: “I like my salad to be a touch aggressive with the vinegar, as the fat of the lamb eventually mixes with it, rounding out, rather than dampening, the flavor.”

    ABOUT THE COOK

    Helen lives in New York City. Fresh off the line at Prune restaurant in Manhattan, she was our first intern, establishing the all-hands-on-deck skill set for future Food52 interns—which includes speed shopping, recipe testing, dazzling e-mail correspondence, and even on-the-fly video editing.

        Her favorite recipe from a cookbook: “Gordon Hamersley’s roast chicken in Bistro Cooking at Home.”

    WHAT THE COMMUNITY SAID

    lastnightsdinner: “We made this for dinner last Friday and it absolutely ROCKS. We love blade chops anyway (an underappreciated cut for sure), but the rub is fantastic, and in combination with the salad they are a pure win. We’ll be making this often in the summer when our local tomatoes, cukes, and peppers are in season. Thanks for a great dish!”