Lamb Riblets with Minted Lime Marinade

June 27, 2011  •  Meat & Poultry

Today is my daughter’s 21st birthday – the baby of the family all grown up. How did that happen? How did the years fly by so very quickly? And how did she grow up to be such a talented, lovely young woman? One I’m proud to say will be attending culinary school next year after college! (Yes, I’m thrilled, which is what all my friends ask me when I tell them that.) As you read this we are in San Francisco celebrating with our family – doing it up the way any self respecting foodies would, with dinner at Perbacco and the Franciscan Crab House. But fortunately, I had a small “Rib-Fest” last weekend for Father’s Day, and I wanted to share this new recipe with you.Now when I say a rib-fest, I mean a rib-fest. I scoured my meat freezer for all the ribs still in there from the past year’s farm purchases, and that included grass-fed beef short ribs from Sun Prairie All Natural Beef (click on the icon on the sidebar to place an order with a 5% discount!), bison short ribs, pork country style ribs, pork spareribs, and lamb riblets. Yes, I know it sounds sad – riblets just sound like part of a baby animal. But surely if you eat lamb you already know this, yes? And if you buy from a farmer or rancher you trust, like I do, you know that little fellow had a really nice life.I like to brown off my ribs first in a very hot oven – like 400 degrees to seal in the juices. My riblets came with the fat side already scored. but if yours aren’t you’ll want to do that so the whole thing doesn’t just curl up while cooking.My garden is overflowing with both mint and oregano, so I decided to make an herb vinaigrette type of marinade that the ribs would basically braise in.Remember for hard stemmed herbs like these you want to strip the leaves off the stems and discard the stems. I add a good handful of each herb to a blender along with garlic cloves, cumin, coriander, lime juice, olive oil, agave, salt and pepper.Lay the ribs on several layers of foil and pour about 2/3 of the marinade over the ribs making sure they are coated. Seal them up tightly and bake at 300 degrees for about 2-3 hours, or until they are tender and falling off the bone like this.Serve the riblets with the remaining sauce as a dressing. The minty lime flavor is outrageously good with lamb. And if you’re lucky, your sister will make you some out of this fabulous potato salad to go with it. I’m working on getting that recipe for you next!

In case you want to know how I cooked everything else, here it is:

Pork Country Style Ribs
– I browned them, then put them in a Dutch oven with my Simply Peach BBQ Sauce and cooked for about 3 hours.

Pork Spareribs – I browned the rack, then laid it on foil and doused in a basic BBQ sauce.

Beef Short Ribs
– I browned on a rack then cooked in a Dutch Oven with wine, stock and vegetables, although I did not add tomato sauce as this recipe calls for.

5.0 from 5 reviews
Lamb Riblets with Minted Lime Marinade
 
Author:
Serves: 2-4
Ingredients
  • 2 lamb riblet racks
  • ½ cup fresh mint leaves
  • ½ cup fresh oregano leaves
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • ½ cup agave nectar (or honey)
  • 6 limes, juiced (or lemons)
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
  1. Season lamb riblets with salt and pepper and bake on a rack at 400 degrees until browned all over, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on several layers of foil.
  2. Combine all remaining ingredients in the blender and process until smooth. Pour ⅔ of the marinade over the riblets and seal the foil tightly. Bake at 300 degrees until tender and meat falls from the bone, about 2-3 hours. Serve with reserved marinade as a dressing.

 

Comments

10 Comments  •  Comments Feed

  1. Lea Ann says:

    Happy Birthday to your daughter and congrats to the proud mom. 🙂 These riblets sound absolutely WONderful. Another bookmarked. Enjoy San Fran.

  2. Joan Nova says:

    Those ribs look delicious…I’m a big fan of mint and lime so I know they not only good, they tasted good too.

    Congratulations on your daughter’s birthday.

  3. visda says:

    Wow. Love this minted lime marinade. Had it at a restaurant once but didn’t know how to recreate it. Hope your daughter loved her birthday meal and thanks for sharing it with us.

  4. Jenny @ Savour the Senses says:

    I want more of these! =)

  5. Lydia says:

    I had these at a restaurant here in Perth called ‘Bread in Common’ and they are to die for!
    I’m making them right now as I think your recipe looks and ‘tastes’ the most similar. Should I assume though that you mean ‘limes’ instead of ‘lemons’….or…. Do we add lime as well?
    Cheers
    Lydia from Australia

  6. Michele says:

    Thanks for catching that typo Lydia! Indeed it should have read limes, but you can also use lemons for a similar end result.

  7. Tee says:

    I made this marinade for some lambchops, soooo good, yumm!

  8. Richard Spillane says:

    I am trying this recipe out now. I scaled it down by about a factor of 4-5 and am using it as a marinade in a ziplock bag for a lamb rack. I do not have oregano so I am using rosemary instead. I will comment again with how it went. All the other marinades prefer lemons and I only had limes, so I am glad I found your website! Happy birthday to your daughter from a decade in the future 🙂

  9. Richard Spillane says:

    OK, we finished cooking the rack. I marinated for 4 hours but it did not penetrate the center of the meat. I seared it first and the marinade seared on very well, sweet and juicy. While cooking I had to cut the rack into chops and finish cooking by sautéing and the marinade helped there as well to impart flavor while it cooked in the pan. Everyone liked it, and I ate the most 🙂

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