Black Garlic-Coffee Lamb Lollipops with Shitake Mushrooms {Easter}

I always knew that I was going to have Jake grill lamb lollipops for our Easter table. It's a family favorite! We've made Garlic-Salt Lamb Lollipops and Rose-y Lamb Lollipops with a Morello Cherry Glaze for instance.

But at the last minute, and after I had already done all of my grocery shopping for Easter, I discovered black garlic. Or, more accurately, I finally had the gumption to pick some up. So, I headed out to the store and picked up three cloves. Thanks, girlichef, for the nudge. Black garlic doesn't taste like garlic at all. It's sweeter, molasses-like but with a little bit more tang. This was delicious!

Ingredients

• 2 heads of black garlic, peeled and divided
• 3 T ground coffee
• 1 T coarse sea salt
• 1 T smoke paprika
• 1 T organic coconut sugar
• 1 T freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 t ground coriander
• olive oil
• 1 C shitake mushrooms, sliced
• fleur de sel

Procedure

Mash one head of black garlic with a mortar and pestle till a chunky paste forms. Blend the next 6 ingredients together in a small mixing bowl.

Rub the mixture on a Frenched rack of lamb and smear the black garlic paste, spreading it as thinly as possible. Let the meat sit for at least 10 minutes before grilling. Grill till desired doneness.

While cooking, make the sauce....

With the remaining cloves of black garlic, slice them thin and place them in a small sauce pan with a splash of olive oil. When the oil begins to sizzle, add in the shitake slices. Cook until the mushrooms are softened. Finish the sauce with a sprinkling of fleur de sel.

To serve, slice the rack into separate pieces - with the bone like a lollipop stick - and plate with the sauce.

In case you're wondering about the other rack of lamb in the photo above with the raw meat: I rubbed that with salt and crushed Thai dragon chilis...just in case this one didn't turn out very well. But now I wish I had done both with the black garlic. Another night!