On Saturday a friend said she never brines because she "tried it once and the meat was way too salty". She's one of those who follows recipes religiously and doesn't give herself permission to deviate. She's not the first to say that, and therefore she's not the first person who got my advice to try again, this time making a brine solution that she found pleasing to taste and then, and only then, dropping her meat into it. It's been my experience that the best flavors come from brines that pleasantly salted-to-taste and balanced.
That was on my brain when I prepped four racks of lamb on Sunday afternoon. They were Costco Australian lamb. It was around 2:00 and the racks needed to be crusted and ready for the oven by 6:00 when guests arrived. They'd languish at room temp, then go into the oven about 7:00 for their 20 minute trip to perfect medium rare. I've never brined a lamb rack before--never thought they needed it-- but the fact that I've never brined lamb and never brined anything in so short a time gave me two reasons to find out if it would--heck, COULD--make any noticeable difference at all.
For the brine, I made a base brine of about 6-7 cups of water with 1 cup of dry sherry, and to that I added about 1/4 cup each kosher salt and sugar. From there I increased the amounts by the tablespoon until I reached what I thought was pleasantly well seasoned, (a bit stronger than I would have done for an overnight brine), which was maybe two more tablespoons of salt. To that I added 5 or 6 bay leaves, a tablespoon of peppercorns and several sprigs of fresh thyme. In went the racks, meat down, and they spent the rest of the afternoon in the oven. 3.5 hours later, I blotted them dry, rubbed them with a bit of flour to dull down the surface and then spread them generously with a green tarragon mustard, sprinkled them with ground black pepper and then pressed into a plate of panko. They sat at room temp and went into the oven for 20 minutes on the top rack at 400 degrees while we sat down to our first course.
At dinner, I thought that the meat was noticeably moister and therefore finer textured than usual, but I was pretty busy being hostess/friend to a guest whose wife passed away just three weeks ago and wasn't really able to pay much attention to my food. Well, just now the cold leftover half a rack from that meal was my lunch, and I'm here to tell you: I will never NOT brine a rack of lamb again!
And I should preface that by saying that when I found the meat in the fridge my first rection was "Ugh, I hate cold lamb." Cold steak? That's breakfast! Cold pork chops, cold ribs? LOVE them. I just adore cold meat. But lamb, be it rare rack or well-done roast leg of, always tastes gamey to me when cold so though I often try nibbling at it later, it typically it ends up in the trash.
Not this time. It still tasted like lamb but there was no gaminess at all. This tasted more like baby milk-fed Petaluma lamb than Costco Australian, and I'm sure the brine's responsible because I could also taste the salt, the sherry, the bay leaves and peppercorn elements in every bite. The finer texture repeated in cold form as well--truly, every detail of my efforts were ALL there. And after an only three-and-a-half-hour bath.
Try it some time, you'll like it!