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Charcoal-Grilled Rack of Lamb with Garlic and Herbs  Recipe - America's Test Kitchen

Have your butcher french the racks of lamb for you (this means that part of each rib bone will be exposed). If the racks are available already frenched, chances are there is still some extra fat and meat on one side. Be sure to trim this away (according to the illustrations below) to encourage even cooking and prevent flare-ups on the grill. Also, make sure that the chine bone (the bone running along the bottom of the rack) has been removed to ensure that it will be easy to cut between the ribs after cooking. Ask the butcher to do it; it’s very hard to cut off at home.

Charcoal-Grilled Rack of Lamb with Garlic and Herbs

Serves 4

When it comes to rack of lamb, there's no way to disguise imperfection. Taken beyond the pinkest medium-rare stage, its rich flavor and supple texture is lost.

We wanted racks with a rich crust and an interior evenly cooked to medium-rare.

Our first challenge was choosing just the right cut—rack of lamb is expensive. While the racks from butcher shops and high-end specialty stores cost more than those from the supermarket, they come already trimmed. And once we trimmed all the excess fat from our supermarket samples, we found this meat wasn't actually much cheaper. However, even the trimmed lamb needed additional butchering, both to remove the "cap" of fat that creates meat-scorching flare-ups and to trim away any excess meat and fat. (For perfect grilling results, we needed fairly lean racks of uniform thickness.) The best grilling technique proved to be a modification of our standard two-level fire procedure. Instead of searing the meat over the hot coals before moving it to the coal-free area to finish cooking, we found the racks should be set on the cooler side for the entire cooking period. Covering them with disposable aluminum pie plates expedited cooking and kept the meat from drying out. And while the lamb tasted great with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper, an herb or crumb coating proved to be a great variation.

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