Chuletillas de Cordero
Small lamb cutlets seared in a very hot pan with sea salt and served with garlic oil and fried padrón peppers, in 25 minutes.
Photograph credit: Chuletillas de cordero Lechal Burgos by Amasuela - Luis Lafuente Agudín · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Before You Start
Pat the cutlets dry.
Use a very hot pan and cook in batches.
Rest the meat for 3 minutes.
Cooking Chuletillas de Cordero
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Take the cutlets out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead and pat dry.
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Heat a heavy pan until smoking, add the 2 tablespoons of oil and sear the cutlets for 2 minutes on each side in 2 batches. Lift out and rest.
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Fry the padrón peppers in the same pan for 4 minutes until blistered. Sprinkle with a little salt.
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Warm the 4 tablespoons of oil with the garlic and paprika for 2 minutes.
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Season the cutlets with the flaky salt, spoon over the garlic oil and serve with the peppers and lemon.
What's Going On Here
Most home lamb cutlets come out grey and chewy, and the fix is a very hot pan and very dry meat. Chuletillas de cordero are small, thin cutlets seared hard and fast and served with little more than sea salt, a clove of garlic and a squeeze of lemon. They are a staple of grill restaurants in Castile.
Take the cutlets out of the fridge 20 minutes before cooking and pat them dry with kitchen paper. A wet surface steams instead of browning. Heat the pan until it is smoking, add a little oil and cook the cutlets in a single layer, in two batches if needed. Two minutes on each side is enough for pink meat.
While the lamb rests, fry the padrón peppers in the same pan until blistered, and warm the garlic in olive oil with a pinch of paprika. Sprinkle the cutlets with flaky salt and spoon the garlic oil over them. Squeeze lemon on top and serve at once, with the peppers and a piece of bread. If your pan is not big enough, do not crowd it.
After You've Cooked It
Best fresh.
Ingredient Swaps
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Good With
- Padrón peppers
- Crusty bread
- Red wine
The Numbers per Serving
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: weights that include bone are counted as if all of it were eaten, so the figures run high. How the figures are worked out.
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .