<p>We have decided to have lamb this Christmas. Any hints for cooking / recipes?
“LAMB LEG CENTER CUT HALF” - two of them, each almost 3 lbs</p>
<p>My dear mother never asks for much. (She even suggested we not give her presents this year, since we paid for her flight to a family wedding last February.) Several times she has mentioned that lamb might be nice, and easier than turkey. She used to cook leg of lamb and lamb chops lot when I was growing up.</p>
<p>At the butcher we had choice of $26/lb for the best cut. Or much less for leg of lamb, but required to buy a whole one (about $80). Looking at the supermarket, we found a big markdown on “Lamb leg center cut half”. We bought the last two (total $30). My first google attempt didn’t work well… I’m gonna try again today. But experience has shown that my cc pals are a better resource ;)</p>
<p>My absolute favorite way to cook boneless leg of lamb is to butterfly it and then let it marinate in lemon (2 Tb), garlic (2 cloves), rosemary (1 1/2 tsp) and olive oil (1/4 cup) overnight. Then cook it on the grill - it takes about 1/2 an hour a little more if you like it well done. If you don’t like grilling in the winter you can cook it in the oven. I like Julia Child’s broil roasting method. You broil for 10 minutes then cook it at 375 for another 20 minutes. You can baste it with a sauce from the marinade with a little Dijon mustard. (2 Tb) </p>
<p>You can use the same flavoring for bone in, but it will have to cook longer, and I’d skip the broiling.</p>
<p>ColoradoMom – I cook a lot of lamb, but that is a cut I don’t recognize – does it have a bone it it? Or is it boneless? Does it have a silver skin on it? Any visible fat? Tied up?</p>
<p>One comment if you’re primarily doing this to make your mom happy – most older folks that I know seem to be very unappreciative of most of the “modern” recipes that call for lamb with any degree of pink inside. In my parents’ minds, and in-laws’ minds, a lamb roast is cooked to well done – low and slow – and served with lamb gravy, mint jelly, and perhaps oven roast potatoes. The challenge is that modern lamb – especially the lamb from New Zealand and Australia – is often rather lean for the low/slow approach, and can use some help so it doesn’t dry out.</p>
<p>We LOVE lamb. Have smoked it in a ceramic cooker once. It was delicous. Have also made it in an unglazed ceramic pot in the oven, following the recipe book for the clay pot. Also loved that. Mathmom’s suggestions sound scrumptious.</p>
<p>Since she’s got two legs, one can be overcooked. :)</p>
<p>Another old favorite recipe of ours involved making slits in the meat and stuffing it with garlic (2 cloves), rosemary (1 Tb) and paprika (1 Tb) and salt and pepper. Then you baste it with a sauce made of 1/4 cup butter, 1 6 0z can of frozen orange juice and 1/4 cup red wind. You roast it 12-15 min per pound for rare, 30 min per pound for well done. Oven temp 350. Don’t start basting until the lamb has cooked for about an hour or the sauce will burn. Haven’t made this in ages, because dh loves the grilled version. (If you are lazy, I think rubbing the ingredients on instead of stuffing slits is just as good.)</p>
<p>Please…whatever you do, do not cook a beautiful expensive leg of lamb to well done! </p>
<p>The best way to get delicious flavor from the lamb is to cook it medium rare. Then let it rest so the juices stay in the meat.
The nice thing about grilling (or in the oven) butterflied leg of lamb is that the meat is not uniform in size. So if you cook the largest parts to medium rare, the are some smaller pieces that are more well done for those who (tragically) like it that way.</p>
<p>Just to be clear – I like medium rare lamb. Cook it all the time. But my parents and in-laws (from two very different ancestries) rather literally gagged at the notion of lamb with any pink to it, right up there as if I’d offered them rare chicken. Or lamb sushi.</p>
<p>The lamb is now frozen, but I am pretty sure it is boneless.</p>
<p>The fine print on the tag says, “PRSL LM LG HLF SHNK COV”. The only thing I can decipher from that is “shank”. </p>
<p>I suspect that mom is looking forward to this. After I told her, she bought the mint jelly the next day. The green color will be pretty even for those of us that don’t eat it…much like the cranberry sauce color with turkey ;)</p>
<p>Here’s the more traditional way to cook lamb. Look at recipes throughout the Internet to verify. This is from the Joy of Cooking.</p>
<p>1.Remove excess fat</p>
<p>2.Put multiple slits in lamb and insert garlic slivers to taste, throughout the leg.</p>
<p>3.Bake in glass dish (or on rack if you prefer) at 450 for 20 mins. Decrease oven to 325 until done - around 130 with a thermometer and preferred doneness - 1-1/2hr.</p>
<p>4.Last half hour of baking I add sliced red potatoes and carrots and baste with juices - </p>
<p>I bake covered with tinfoil.</p>
<p>Serve with roasted asparagus, salad and mint jelly.</p>
<p>D went through a phase at about 6 where every meat was better with mint jelly. I’m pretty sure we probably bagged the store record at Safeway that year for most bottles of mint jelly purchased by a single family. (That was the same year when she would NOT eat ground meat of any variety. Still no idea what that was all about…maybe a texture thing.)</p>
<p>for the future, I purchase boneless lamb roasts at Costco. They are reasonably prices and quite good. (Have one in fridge now for Christmas Eve dinner!). I don’t get fancy, just roast it according to Betty Crocker cookbook, although I might try a Reynolds browning bag to control the mess.</p>
<p>colorado_mom: you don’t have to join Costco to shop there. Go online, buy a gift card, use it to shop there—no membership required to use a gift card.</p>
<p>I love braised lamb, I cook it slow in the oven, but I think that’s just like a good crockpot.</p>
<p>I’ll check out the lamb more closely as it get thawed. The slow cooking in oven may work best since we do a mid afternoon holiday meal. Most crockpot recipes call for 8+ hours. One is 6 hours on high plus 6 hours on low.</p>
<p>Regarding Costco gift cards… I found this online, “You must be a Costco member to purchase or reload Costco Cash Cards. Members and non-members may use the cash cards to shop at any Costco locaton in the United States, Puerto Rico or on costco.com. Costco Cash balances may be used toward membership or merchandise.”</p>
<p>So it looks like I can use a gift card w/o being a member. But I’d need to find a member friend to buy one (with my money). True?</p>