So my husband picked up a boneless leg of lamb at Costco. I have never cooked lamb before. I saw a recipe to roast it at 325 for 2-2 1/2 hours, until 135 in the middle. That sounds fine and easy. But anyone have any better ideas for cooking the meat? I also have a sous vide machine, a pressure cooker, and fairly well stocked kitchen.
Any fool proof rubs or seasonings for lamb? What sides should I do? I’m thinking greek, so I will definitely make a tzatziki sauce. And I have some frozen mini-spanikopitas left over from a girls’ night, that I will pop in for an appetizer.
Here is a recipe for lamb cacciatore that I submitted to the Usenet cookbook many years ago. The recipe calls for four pounds of meat, but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have that amount.
Stab it deeply at 1.5 inch spacing all over with a sharp, thin-bladed knife - into each slit, push a sliver of garlic, a few leaves of rosemary and half an anchovy fillet (the really salty ones that come in little oblong cans), Bake/roast until still just pink inside, or cook without additional liquid in a slow cooker until it’s falling apart.
Lamb+rosemary+salt(in this case, anchovies) = awesome.
Mustard, rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper and brown sugar. Mix them all together.
Remove the netting from the leg of lamb and use a good sharp knife to make sure it fully opens and is more or less an even thickness. You’re doing that because the next step is to slather the above mixture all over the inside - the even thickness makes sure the flavor gets into the large muscles.
Put the netting back on and slather the outside.
Now at this point, your best bet is to throw this guy on the grill, sear the outsides nice and dark and then put it off the direct heat until it gets to 135-140 (depending on your preference). This takes about 75 minutes for me, but I trust to the thermometer, not the clock.
You can do the same recipe in the oven, but the char and smoke are a key element of the flavor for me. Still, you’ll get something pretty edible even in the oven.
(Note: I think this recipe is based on Alton Brown’s, but it’s in my head now and I don’t know how close mine is to the original. But if you need measurements other than “enough to look right” you’ll probably want to look AB’s version up.)
(Note 2: Mint is never allowed anywhere near my lamb. I don’t know where that tradition started, but I can’t stand that flavor combination.)
I have prepared that exact same lamb from Costco. The last time was just a couple weeks ago, infact.
Rosemary is nice indeed! But last time I just used pepper and curry powder. I have read to not use salt since it draws out the moisture, so I didn’t last time and it was just fine. On the other I didn’t notice it getting dry when I did salt, it, so…
What I did is place it with the fattier side up in a shallow pan. 425 for mebbe 20 minutes, just long enough so it starts getting crispy on the outside. Then down to 325 for the rest of the time. I let mine go to 145, because I was feeding it to kids as well and they might not go for the more rare. Covered with foil to rest for about 20 minutes.
I bought half a leg of lamb last week and made “seven hour lamb” at the weekend, a French dish where the lamb is cooked for seven hours on a very low heat (120 degrees C). It was the tenderest lamb I have ever had. Recipes differ, but this is similar to the one I followed.
I didn’t know what to do with the netting, so I cut it off. I slathered the whole thing in olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then I trussed it back up in some kitchen twine, and stuck a few rosemary branches under the twine.
It will go in the oven around 3pm.
I love that grill recipe, and will definitely try that once it gets a bit warmer out, dracoi!
I rub it with a little olive oil, with kosher salt, minced garlic, and rosemary. Roast it until it’s rare to medium-rare. The first round of leftovers is reheated roast. After that, the rest is ground up in the meat grinder, mixed with frozen mixed vegetables and the leftover gravy, put into a casserole/baking dish, topped with the leftover mashed potatoes or colcannon, and baked in the oven until the potatoes are browned a bit. Yum.
Unfortunately, the SO does not care for lamb (roast, steaks, meatballs, burgers…) so it’s off the menu.
I usually do this using garlic, the end of a scallion, and a piece of a pepper. Rosemary does go quite well with lamb but my wife is allergic to it. I often lard the leg as well because I like it more well done and it keeps it from drying out. I will try the anchovies the next time.
Just this past weekend on PBS Jacques Pepin had a boneless leg of lamb. He took off the netting and cut it up into the separate muscles and described what to do with each, e.g. steaks, roast, filets. If you can find that video it might be useful for your leg of lamb education.
