New Year's Lamb
I wanted to try something new and exciting for New Year's Eve, so I made my first Leg of Lamb, the Roast Leg of Lamb with Fennel Butter recipe from the Epicurious website. It was fabulous! The only change I made was to use a semi-boneless rather than boneless leg (because that's what I could get at the last minute). I cooked it until it was 130F, and it was a beautiful medium rare. The sauce was extremely tasty and easy to make.
I served it with a slightly boring broccoli cauliflower gratin from Epicurious - it was good, but nothing special. However, with a lot of tasty additions - more salt, cheese, etc, it might make a nice veggie main course.
Also, we started out with some Crab Canapes from the same website, which were good with champagne.
Happy New Year!
Labels: Appetizers, Holidays, Meat, Vegetarian
posted by kaybray @ 9:09 PM
2 Comments:
I used to be intimidated by lamb for many of the reasons you mentioned, but now that I've done it several times the only thing that holds me back is the price. This recipe was so easy - just brown it in a skillet and then stick it in the oven. A meat thermometer is the key to getting it cooked right.
In a lot of ways, I cook lamb similar to how I cook beef. You can slow cook it, like in my all-time favorite lamb recipe, the Algerian Lamb Shanks from the Williams Sonoma website. It's easy, because you just brown them and then let them cook in the oven for a while. (Also, I've gotten more compliments for that than anything else I've ever cooked!) Also, I like to get ground lamb and make meatballs or hamburgers with a Mediterranean/Mideast twist.
I definitely feel that lamb is under-represented in the meat world, and yet is my favorite! Sadly, I have memories of my paternal grandmother ruining it with mint jelly...what are your thoughts on that traditional combination?
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