SUCCULENT Lamb Ribs With Orange & Rosemary For Father's Day!

These lamb ribs are incredible! Slow roasted lamb ribs are flavoured with orange, ginger and rosemary until they are so soft and fall off the bone and then finished with a gorgeous orange glaze! They're the perfect Father's Day meal and can be made ahead of time too. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader!

Lamb ribs are one of my favourite cuts of lamb. I love meat on the bone and lamb ribs are so luscious and tender and easily soak up flavours. They're also one of the most inexpensive cuts of lamb at less than $20 a kilo, which if you've seen the prices of meat lately is a steal. I wanted to make lamb ribs for a Father's Day story but when I saw what I had in terms of fruit and veggies I had lots of orange and rosemary from Valentina's garden that I thought that they'd make a great flavour combo for lamb.

Little did I realise how delicious it would be! These lamb ribs are so easy. It starts with a quick marinade, then slow roasting and then a glaze right at the end using the marinade mixture. I actually served these the day after I first made them and because lamb ribs, like lamb shoudler are such a forgiving cut, they were even better the next day as the flavours permeated but the innate lusciousness of them meant that they were still incredibly succulent.

Other lamb rib recipes: Lamb ribs mint sauce, Pomegranate Lamb Ribs, Lamb Ribs with Kasundi, Lamb Ribs With Hoi Sin and Sesame and Sticky, Spicy Lamb Ribs

I have been quiet on socials lately as we are in the full on depths of renovations. I have a fantastic builder - Peter and his team are busy working on our house. I actually got his details from Monica when he did some work for her. He's thorough but wastes no time and has a real "Can do" attitude which I really appreciate. We've had so many tradies go through our house lately but only for a day or two. This is going to last for a couple of months and I wanted to make sure that they knew where everything was in case they needed it. I told him to help himself to anything like tea or coffee any time. "Oh and feel free to use the oven or microwave if you need to," I said to him. He chuckled and said that he was having some tins of tuna for his lunch. He's a tall, solid guy and the work is very physical and I wondered if that would be enough for him (I'm a feeder, in case it wasn't obvious).

At the end of the week they had made so much progress removing asbestos, fortifying the beams and removing the downstairs bathroom and load bearing wall. I had visions of living in a dust filled excavation site for months but he and his team were powering through it. Nothing is ever too much trouble and he has a solution for everything and he and his team are so polite and lovely that it doesn't feel like an intrusion in the house.

When I was making these ribs a couple of them commented about how good they smelled. "How about I make you lunch tomorrow?" I said to Peter. When he was working on Monica's house she occasionally made Peter lunch. But with such a big team working on our house I'd need to make something quite substantial. I was racking my brain for what to serve them and then realised that these lamb ribs right in front of me would be perfect as they heat up so well the next day. I wasn't sure what else to serve it with and I started over thinking it and deciding maybe a fennel and orange salad and crème caramel but when Milo found a cheese and bacon roll I decided that meat, potatoes and bread were perhaps a better idea. So on the menu went these orange and rosemary lamb ribs, potato salad, bread, dips and Chinese tomato eggs (for the vegetarian plumber). I took a picture of them with their lunch to show Monica. The lamb ribs came back clean as they powered through these too! The next day Peter sent me a message:

"Hi Lorraine can you send me the photo of the lunch yesterday I’m having beers with some builder mate this arvo and I want to show off how good I’ve got it."

So tell me Dear Reader, is there something that you like to make on Father's Day? And do you have any suggestions on what to serve them for a future lunch?

Lamb Ribs With Orange & Rosemary

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 2.5 hours

Serves: 4-5 people

• 1.25kgs/2.7lbs lamb ribs
• 6 cloves garlic
• 2 inches fresh ginger
• Zest of 2 oranges
• 1.5 cups/375mls/12.6flozs. orange juice
• 6 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1.5 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• Needles from 2 sprigs rosemary
• 120g/4ozs. brown sugar

Step 1 - Finely grate the garlic and ginger and mix with the orange zest, orange juice, soy sauce, rosemary needles and rice wine vinegar (don't add the sugar or honey at this stage). Marinate the lamb ribs in this mixture for 1 hour.

Step 2 -Preheat oven to 160C/320F and line a deep baking dish with parchment. Lay out the ribs with a little of the marinade and season with salt and pepper. Reserve the rest of the marinade for the glaze. Cover the tray with foil and roast for 2 hours.

Step 3 -While it is heating make the glaze. Place the remaining marinade (there should be around 1 1/4 cup or so) and add the brown sugar and bring to a boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until reduced to a maple syrupy texture. When the ribs are done, brush them with the glaze generously and then increase the heat to 220C/440F and roast for 10 minutes. Brush them again with the glaze and roast for another 10 minutes. Serve with salad, potatoes or rice.