"Crown Roast" of Lamb from Lessons in Chemistry

When I was doing research for the prior blog posts on the recipes from Lessons in Chemistry, I came upon an extra recipe that wasn’t shared on the site: Crown Roast of Lamb. This is a visually striking dish made as part of a montage of meals made on Supper at Six in episode 5. Elizabeth Zott holds it above her head like a crown and does a curtsy, laughing in the process.

I don't think I've ever curtsied before. Well, there's a first time for everything. And a last.

-Elizabeth Zott

I liked that moment because it showed the audience, both in-universe and real world, that Elizabeth does have a playful side. As someone with the kind of male boss who would tell women to smile more (and does try to force Zott to), here we see her doing it because she’s genuinely enjoying herself.

The dish on the show is adorned with those little hats on the end of the bones (I’ve no idea what they’re called), and served on a large lettuce leaf with roasted apples (I think) surrounding it. Very beautifully presented.

Impressive as a crown roast of lamb is, it’s incredibly expensive. I found that if I was to get the two racks of lamb needed for the dish, it would run me $75-80 easily. This is also a dish meant to be served for a lot of people, ideally your family at Easter when you’re eating lamb anyway. My family likes lamb cooked a particular way, and so a crown roast for multiple reasons was not going to be practical.

I’m never deterred however, and wanted to find an alternative. I figured, if I sear and/or roast lamb chops, and cook the rice in the middle the same way, it’s a much lower cost option to enjoy the same lamb. So that’s exactly what I did.

I made the rice as it was in the recipe, using dried cranberries instead of currants and a bit of veg stock to top up most of the chicken, why open another chicken carton for like 1/4 cup of it? Never be afraid to pivot in the kitchen.

The recipe assumes you roast the crown rack of lamb at 325 for 35min. Since I had small lamb chops with the bone in, I used a recipe from Allrecipes that roasts them at 425 for 8-10, then rest for 8-10. They weren’t fully cooked, so I reverse seared them on the stove to finish the chops, and let them rest before checking them. As a side, I cooked corn in maple butter leftover from biscuits made earlier in the week.

We enjoyed it, although I felt it needed something to make it more impressive, and should have seasoned it more. Perhaps the lamb could have benefitted from some garlic and rosemary, and maybe seared first, then roasted rather than the reverse as I did. The rice also needed some more spices. Overall though, not a bad dish. While I would one day like to create the dish the way it was intended with a crown roast, using lamb chops is a good option for the cook on a budget.

If you want to make this recipe yourself, you can get it from Food & Wine here. You can also view a short video of the lamb behind the scenes, shared by Courtney on her Instagram page here.