[Artemisia] Lamb recipes

[Mary Hodges]

You lucky girl!  I envy you, lamb is my favorite!

Here are two of my best recipes.

Lamb recipe #1
Grilled butterflied leg of lamb
Split the meat down to the bone lengthwise, it should be about one and a 
half to two inches thick.  When it's opened up it looks a little like a 
butterfly.  Mash up several cloves of garlic (I put them in the food 
processor-the number depends on how much you like garlic) into a paste 
with a little olive oil, rub the garlic paste on the lamb some time 
before you grill it (longer time=more garlic flavor), pepper and grill 
over hot coals. Add salt at the very last minute before you take it off 
the grill.  I like lamb medium rare and hot all the way through, but 
tastes vary.

Lamb recipe #2
Roast leg of lamb
If there is a thin papery looking tissue on the outside, remove it.  
Then pierce the fat all over with a sharp knife and put slivers of 
garlic in the slits.  Sprinkle the outside with coarse ground pepper, 
rosemary and lavender to taste.  Place the lamb, fat and garlic side up, 
on a rack in a greased roasting pan. If the lamb has a lot of fat, put a 
half inch of water in the pan under the rack so the grease doesn't 
smoke. If it's a big roast, you may have to add more water as roasting 
progresses.

Turn your oven up as hot as it will go (typically about 450 to 500 
degrees F for an electric oven-I've never had a gas oven so I don't know 
how hot they can get.)  Open the door and quickly put the lamb in the 
oven, then  immediately turn the heat down to 325 or 350 F and roast 
until done.  You can test for doneness by poking the meat and seeing the 
color of the juices (clear=well done, pink=medium, red=rare) or you can 
get out the big fat cookbook (I use Joy of Cooking) and use a meat 
thermometer following their instructions.  Time to desired doneness 
depends on how much your leg of lamb weighs, whether you let it come to 
room temperature before roasting, and how hot your oven really is (built 
in oven thermometers are notoriously inaccurate).

Enjoy.  Lamb is really good with turnips, or braised carrots, and green 
salad made with romaine or other dark greens.  Apples or pears sauteed 
in a little butter with cinnamon are also a nice side dish with lamb, 
and so are fresh green peas with mint.

Lamb smells a little different than beef and pork, and some people don't 
like the smell.  If you don't like the smell, grilling is the way to 
go.  Lamb is a more delicate meat than beef and will dry out horribly if 
you over cook it.
 
The American Lamb Council homepage at
http://www.lambchef.com/li_pages/lamb.html  has lots of lamb recipes.

Enjoy.
Jehane

Kay Moore wrote:

>
> Just gifted with a haunch of lamb.   Anyone out there have any good 
> lamb recipes?  Roast (if that's do-able), stew, whatever - period or 
> not, just good - I have lots of Middle Eastern spices on hand, just 
> not not familiar with cooking with lamb at all - any help would be 
> appreciated!
>
> Arrowyn
>
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