Lamb and Red Onion Tacos with Tomato Relish

When Jacob got the Boy meets Grill cookbook for Christmas, I was ecstatic.  I have a whole shelf of cookbooks in my guest room closet that only get used occasionally, but I still love getting them.  I usually hit them when I am in a food rut and nothing looks good online.

Christmas morning, I spent like an hour looking through the Boy meets Grill cookbook, asking Jacob what recipes sounded good and what didn't.  When looking for something for the week of New Years, I found this recipe for lamb tacos and thought it would be a good recipe to try first.

Lamb and Red Onion Tacos with Tomato Relish
slightly adapted from Boy Meets Grill
Ingredients
Tomato Relish:
4 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Lamb Marinade:
1 small red onion, coarsely chopped
10 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
1 cup fresh orange juice
1 cup olive oil

Lamb:
1.5 lamb stew meat or lamb tenderloin
Lamb Marinade
Salt and Pepper

To Assemble Tacos:
Flour tortillas
1 cup grated white cheddar cheese
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
1 red onion, sliced thin
Salt and pepper
Tomato Relish

Directions:
1) Tomato Relish: Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and let sit for 1 hour at room temperature.
2) Lamb Marinade: Combine all the ingredients, let rise to room temperature, put lamb in and mariate in the fridge for 2 to 4 hours.
3) Lamb: If you have lamb tenderloins, you can drain the marinade and season with salt and pepper.  Grill 4-5 minutes per side until medium rare.  Let sit for 10 minutes and then slice.  If you are using lamb stew meat, drain the marinade and saute for about 4 minutes, turning as it cooks. 
4) Assemble tacos using desired ingredients.

 

 

These tacos turned out great.  I thought three different types of cheese would overwhelm everything in the taco, but it all worked well together.  The tomato relish provides just the right amount of acid to cut through all the cheese and the meat is delicious.  The marinade cut through the kind of game-y taste that I think lamb can sometimes have.  This was a great recipe and I can't wait to try more of the recipes in this cookbook.