Cumin and Paprika Lamb Rack Roast

Ingredients

• 2 × 500 g Lamb rack roast (cutlet rack)Sold in Australia as a lamb rack or lamb rack roast: a row of rib cutlets still joined together. For 1 to 2 people, use one 500 g rack; see the yield note.
• 600 g Kipfler potatoes, scrubbed, halved lengthways, quartered if large
• 2 Garlic cloves, crushedHalf goes with the potatoes, half into the spice rub.
• 2 tablespoons Olive oilHalf with the potatoes, half in the rub; plus a light spray of olive oil for the vegetables.
• 3 teaspoons Smoked paprika
• 3 teaspoons Ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon Dried chilli flakes
• 1 Red onion, cut into wedges
• 1 Yellow capsicum, coarsely chopped
• 250 g punnet Cherry truss tomatoes
• ¼ cup, given by the source as 40 g Pitted kalamata olives
• 80 g Baby kale
• To serve Lemon wedges and mint leaves

Yield: Serves 4, as stated by the source, from two 500 g racks. Source times: 15 minutes preparation, 50 minutes cooking and 10 minutes resting. For 1 to 2 people, this project's own scaling — not the source's — is one 500 g rack with every other quantity halved. The oven times stay the source's, because a rack's cooking time depends on the size of that rack, not on how many are in the pan; check with a thermometer all the same. The source gives no rack thickness and no tray dimensions beyond 'large roasting pan'; for a half batch, any pan that holds the potatoes in one layer will do.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C. The source gives this single figure with no fan or conventional label, and no second figure is invented here. The source names no shelf; a middle shelf is this project's ordinary default, not a source instruction.
2. In a large roasting pan, toss the potatoes with half the garlic and half the oil, and roast them for 10 minutes on their own.
3. Meanwhile, mix the paprika, cumin, chilli flakes and the rest of the garlic and oil, and rub it evenly all over the lamb.
4. Sit the lamb on top of the potatoes, scatter the onion around, and roast for 25 minutes.
5. Add the capsicum and tomatoes around the lamb, give the vegetables a light spray of oil, and roast for 10 to 15 minutes more, until the vegetables are tender and the lamb is done the way you like it. Stir the olives through.
6. Measure the lamb in the middle of the meat, between two bones and not touching either. Health Canada's lowest figure for a whole lamb cut is 63°C internal, for medium-rare. Australian Lamb's doneness guide, which is about how the meat eats rather than about safety, gives 60°C for rare, 60 to 65°C for medium rare and 65 to 70°C for medium, and suggests taking lamb out about 3 to 6°C before your goal because it keeps cooking as it rests.
7. Move the lamb to a plate, cover it with foil and rest it for 10 minutes. Cut the rack into cutlets between the bones and serve on the vegetables with the kale, lemon wedges and mint.