Australian Lamb Chops on a Shovel(page 285)

The actual recipe is about how to do it on a grill, but there is a little sidebar saying "to be truly authentic, you should do it on a shovel in a wood fire".  Plus Joan has seen it done on Primal Grill and would settle for no less than the full treatment. 

Joan and I got 8 lamb loin chops from Sendik's.  We decided to cook some potatoes in the fire along with it, plus a pasta salad.  Finally, because we were afraid the lamb chops would not be enough, we got a 1 lb Tbone steak.

I started the fire 2 hrs early, but it took a bit to really get rolling.  It was supposed to have burned down to a good bed of coals, but due to technical difficulties it really had not done that by the time we were ready to cook.  I'm sure that could have been done more quickly.  Still, the relatively unburned logs still being there helped for bracing the shovel and shielding it from above.  Joan says the guy in Primal Grill still had logs in his fire.

The potatoes weren't in the book.  They were supposed to be a small amount of olive oil and salt, then wrapped in aluminum foil and "buried in the coals".  I tried to do this, but there weren't enough coals and they immediately burned out, so we moved to plan B and just threw them in the fire.  But they came out fine, not needing extra cooking after about an hour.   

Joan worked a long time on the pasta salad - orzo, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, dill, parsley, red onions, green onions, salt, pepper and lemon juice.  I'll let her comment on it.  I missed out on it due to mean old Dr. Atkins.

The shovel part went very well.  Dad had a nice flat bladed shovel that was perfect for it.  We wedged it under two logs and it heated right up.  We settled on 8 minutes per lamb chop, turning every 2 min, and they came out medium.  Recipe says to season generously, and he means generously.  I am glad we did that because it added a lot to the flavor.  There was some speculation that the shovel business worked out well for the lamb due to the fat immediately running off/being burned off, compared to what would happen if you made lamb chops in a pan.  Obviously the wood smoke made a huge difference too.

Lastly, we cavemanned in the Tbone steak.  It came out fine - a little burned on the outside, of course a bit ash covered, and rare in the middle some places.  It also immediately put out the coals it was resting on, so had to be moved around a lot.  Dad could not stop laughing because, as the steak was sitting there in the coals with ashes flying all around it, Joan speculated that it needed more salt since that had worked so well for the chicken last week.

The shovel will never have the bright and shining blade it did before, but the meal was good.