This is a dish of ancho-braised lamb shank with panisse, squash, yogurt, and a warm salad of tomato, charred green pepper, cilantro, and pumpkinseeds.
While the components are compatible and well-integrated, there were many disparate inspirations.
Core Elements and Inspirations
I like to have one braised item on every menu. It is an essential technique for my students to learn, it’s a good balance to the many lean pan-roasted or grilled proteins on our menu, and it helps simplify service as it can be hot-held. I decided lamb shank would be this season’s braise.
I have Greek food on the brain. The current infatuation has many diverse origins. For starters this summer is the ten year anniversary of an epic trip through southern Greece, and I have been reading old food notes from the journey. Also I’ll be doing a class on Greek mezze for Metro Continuing Education this fall. With all this in mind last week I made a Greek lamb sausage.
In 2008 I spent five weeks in Greece, eating in tavernas two or three times a day. I don’t think I ever had a sausage like this. In other words this sausage is not traditional, but it is very much inspired by Greek loukaniko, a pork sausage flavoured with orange … Continue reading.
The defining element of Irish stew is the use of lamb neck, or scrag.
Traditionally it is made more like a casserole than a stew. Actually it bares an uncanny resemblance to boulangère potatoes. Lamb, potato rounds, and other vegetables are layered in a casserole, then covered with stock or water and baked in an oven.
Lamb neck is a very tough cut of meat. I sear and braise the necks to tenderize, then use the shredded meat and cooking liquid to make the stew.
Once the necks are very tender to the tip of a paring knife, I remove them from the liquid and let cool briefly. While the necks are still warm I fold back the meat … Continue reading.
In case the title didn’t tip you off, this post contains pictures of a lamb brain and details on its preparation for human consumption. If that bothers you, there’ll be a new post tomorrow that you’ll like better.
“Because of their delicacy and easy digestibility, spine marrow and brains are of great nutritional value for children and old people.”
-Escoffier, La Guide Culinaire
I would say that I eat more offal than most. I don’t really seek it out, but by buying whole animals, there’s always some available to me. Most of the offal I eat is from lambs, which is weird, because most of the meat I eat is from pigs, cows, and chickens. The main reason that I … Continue reading.
Having removed the scrag when breaking the lamb into primals, the components remaining on the lamb front are the shoulder, the breast, and the shank.
I love having ground lamb in my kitchen, so usually I bone out on entire lamb shoulder just to run it through the meat grinder. The other half is broken in a bone-in shoulder roast, a boneless breast ideal for stuffing and rolling, and a shank, one of the world’s supreme braising cuts.
Here is half of the lamb front, with the fell still attached.
We remove the fell to expose the fat cap.
Here is the inside of the front, showing the backbone on the top, the first six ribs, and the breastbone … Continue reading.
The loin primal is divided into two sections. The forward part, from the thoracic section of the spine, contains ribs, and is usually trimmed to make rack of lamb. The back part, from the lumbar section, contains no ribs, and is usually broken into lamb chops.
Dividing the Loin Primal into the Rib and Loin Subprimals
This is the whole loin primal, with the fell still attached.
Here is the underside of the loin primal. You can see the rib section on the left, and the loin subprimal on the right.
We divide the two by cutting after the last rib bone, then cleaving through the backbone.
This post is about preparing a whole lamb leg for a classic roasted leg of lamb, or gigot. This is the whole leg, straight from the animal.
First remove the tail bone, which you can see running along the top of the leg primal. On the forward end of the tailbone (to the left in the picture below) is the connection to the pelvis. Since lambs are so young, you should be able to easily break this adhesion.
The leg, tailbone removed:
Next remove the pelvis. This is a complicated little bone. Follow it as closely as you can, making small, exploratory cuts with a boning knife.
This is a whole lamb from Tangle Ridge Ranch. Notice that, unlike pork and beef, the lamb has not been cut in two down the spine. The carcass is easy to handle (typically 40-60 lbs, maybe a bit smaller for grass-finished varieties like Tangle Ridge). It’s traditionally broken into four primals:
front,
leg,
loin, and
flank.
Removing the front. The first primal to be removed is the front, which is separated from the rest of the animal by cutting between the sixth and seventh ribs. You can count the ribs by putting your hand inside the cavity. Slide a knife between the sixth and seventh ribs and cut all the way up to the backbone, and all the … Continue reading.
This is as casual as lamb gets at my house. Typically, serving lamb is an event. Lamb chops are probably the only cut that we would casually remove from the freezer the day we plan to cook it, then grill it briefly for a private dinner.
Lambs can be cut however you want, but typically the loin is divided into two sections. The thoracic section, containing the ribs, is usually formed into a rack of lamb. The lumbar section, which has no ribs, makes lamb chops. Lamb chops are analogous to the T-bone steaks on a side of beef. In the picture at left, the round, white bone at the bottom of the chop is the chine bone, or backbone. … Continue reading.
There is nothing quite like roasting large joints of meat and carving them tableside. A bit of pageantry with dinner.
A down and dirty recipe:
Roast Lamb Leg
Ingredients
1 whole lamb leg
garlic, minced
thyme, minced
rosemary, minced
kosher salt
coarse ground black pepper
Procedure
Trim the leg: remove the fell, clean the meat from the shank bone, and trim back the fat to an even, thin (1/8″) layer. For detailed instructions on trimming up a whole lamb leg to make a roast, see this post.
Score the fat in a diamond pattern, with about 1″ between each slice.
