Lemon & Thyme Lamb Chops and Tomato Salad with Red Onion, Dill and Feta

This should be a shorter post, because I can just link to recipes I used.  For the Lemon-Thyme Lamb Chops, I bought double cut chops, and doubled the marinating time. 

To cook them, I heated up a cast iron skillet in the oven at 500 degrees for 20-30 minutes, then moved it to a burner on high.  I cooked the chops for about 90 seconds per side (all four sides b/c the double chops are thick and kind of boxy) on high until they had a nice sear on them, then moved the skillet back to oven at 450 for 3-4 minutes.  This should give you medium rare chops.

On the side, we had couscous and a tomato salad that was a perfect use for the dill from this week's share.  I used 4 different kinds/colors of tomatoes - one from the farm share and three different heirlooms from Whole Foods, a store with which I have a dysfunctional relationship.

I went lighter on the olive oil (1/3 of a cup instead of 1/2) and the feta (about 1/2 a cup instead of a full cup).  The mint and dill together are fantastic, and soaking the red onion in cold water tames the onionyness of the salad.  I kind of wish I'd used less green tomato, because color-wise it is somewhat redundant given the cucumber and all the herbs.  I also used a yellow pepper instead of red for more color and because the flavors are pretty comparable.  The result was terrific - some of the smaller bits of feta become part of the red wine vinegar dressing, and the pepper, cucumber, onion, and olive flavors all meld together in the marinade.  I would definitely make this again.

Here is the final plating, with everything put together:

And finally, what will hopefully become a running bit on this blog, a "Fine Wein" pairing suggestion.  According to Whole Foods, the lamb is from about 57 miles outside of DC, somewhere in Virginia.  Given that the lamb prep is quite French, I was already kind of thinking along the lines of terroir in terms of pairings, when it occurred to me that we had a couple bottles of wine from Chrysalis Vineyards on our wine rack.  We went with their Petit Verdot - Hollin Reserve 2005.

The pairing was great, and I do think there was a common earthiness in the lamb and wine.  Is this because they both hale from a few (or a few dozen) miles apart?  I'd like to think so, but I don't know if my palate is refined enough to really make this call.  That being said, the Petit Verdot was perfect with this lamb prep - its flavor was somewhere between a bordeaux and a cabernet sauvignon.  For a heartier, more wintery prep I would probably want a big cab, but this was ideal with the delicately flavored lamb and bright summer salad.

I think this was a total success, and a great use of the farm share dill (which can be overpowering in some recipes, but not this one) and tomato.