Lamb Chops with Red Wine Reduction

I had other plans for last night's dinner on my menu plan - that is, until I saw already discounted sale lamb chops with the extra "today's the last sell by day" discount sticker applied at Giant. Super cheap Australian lamb? Count me in.

Here's what I did (You'll notice some parallels with yesterday's miso salmon - let's just say that I was on a shallot kick since my mother-in-law gave me a huge bag of shallots that she didn't use over the holidays. Also, pickle juice a great addition just about anywhere, and my Bubbies were almost gone.):

• Marinated 1 lb. (5 palm-sized chops in my case) in a gallon size zip bag in about 2 tablespoons Pompeii pomegranate-infused red wine vinegar and 1/2 c. tamari. (For what it's worth I'm sure regular red wine vinegar is a perfectly fine substitute.)
• In the meantime, set 1.5-2 c. red wine (also Australian, in my case!) and 1/2 c. pickle juice (yea, you read that rightly, from my Bubbies in my case) with 4 bay leaves in a saucepan on the stove on medium-low heat to reduce until thickened and closer to syrup, over about half an hour.
• After half hour of lamb chops marinating and sauce reducing, poured excess of chops' tamari-vinegar marinade into reducing red wine sauce.
• Put 2 tbsp. bacon grease in a large pan with 3 thinly-sliced shallots, and sauted on medium-high for just a couple of minutes.
• In the pan with the bacon grease, seared the lamb chops on both sides, about 2 minutes each (this is if you - as I do - like your lamb quite rare; my husband was quite freaked out by the rawness and ended up microwaving his into submission after the fact).
• Poured red wine reduction from the saucepan into the large pan with the lamb chops and cook another 2 minutes while continuously turning the chops to ensure that they get lots of exposure to the sauce. Also scraped any brown bits from the bottom of the pan and stirred back into the red wine sauce as I flipped the chops.
• Added the lamb chops to serving plate and allowed sauce to reduce on medium-high another minute or two, then drizzled over chops.

Incidentally, the strong, savory flavor of these chops and their sauce were very nicely accompanied by the mildness of a baked sweet potato with some grass fed butter to top.