Image credit: freedigitalphotos.net/Suat Eman
A l'il lamb
Ran in the column "Ravenous" in the Kingston Times and Highland Post-Pioneer, October 13, 2005
"We dote on lamb in any form."
----Craig Claiborne with Pierre Franey, The New York Times Magazine, June 5, 1983
Although it's in the spring that a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lamb (apologies to Tennyson), I crave it when it gets cold out. When I drag out the wool to wear, I want what comes under it, too: rich aromatic lamb dishes. I want murky, gelatinous stews, savory chops and hulking roasts. No food warms me better.
In Northern China they like lamb for the same reason, and the frigid northern reaches of the huge country are the only region where people like it. Beijing, the home of the crispy classic Peking Duck, is called the Mutton City of China. In small dark smoky eateries with thick padded weighted curtains at the door to keep out the cold, people hover around Mongolian hot pots that steam the air with the unique aroma of lamb, a big turnoff to any visitors from other parts of China. Other popular northern Chinese lamb dishes are Tung Po stewed lamb, much like an Irish stew with potatoes and carrots and onions, but with the additions of ginger and a touch of soy sauce, and a deconstructed 50-pound sheep boiled in a huge cauldron for hours with soy and herbs, then deep-fried in sesame oil.
We Americans eat less than a pound of lamb a year, on average, compared to 66 pounds of beef. Unlike our beloved salmon steaks or boneless skinless chicken breasts, most lamb comes on its bones (unless you buy it ground), reminding us uncomfortably, perhaps, that it is the flesh of what was once a live creature.
But I love lamb and always have, maybe because I ate tender and flavorful lamb as a kid instead of the gray gamey stuff it can be with poor quality meat and poor quality cooking.
And if any meat is cosmopolitan and world-traveled, it's lamb. I think of spicy aromatic Indian vindaloo, of gigot d'agneau studded with salt pork, of a Moroccan tajine with apricots, or a rich magenta Ukrainian borscht studded with bits of it. I think of those soothing pie-like preparations that I love to cook that are made with ground lamb (don't even think about using beef!), like real shepherds pie, like the luscious Greek moussaka of ground lamb sauce and eggplant topped with eggy bêchamel, and the similar South African bobotie with curry, raisins and almonds in the mix. I think more recently of the zesty, spicy lamb sausages I buy on Sundays at my local farmers market.
I love lamb shoulder chops and they are probably the cut I buy the most. Blade chops, with their strings of sinew, are better in a long-simmered braise when the connective tissue breaks down, but my favorite are the round bone chops, sort of an extension of the fore shank. They are much cheaper than the filet mignon of lamb, the frivolous tender tiny rib chops, two bucks a bite. Although shoulder chops lend themselves very well to that slow braise, I like to grill, broil or panfry them, too, after marinating them in lots of chopped or crushed garlic, cumin, marjoram, spearmint, salt and black and red peppers. Other good flavorings for lamb include lemon, parsley, dill, rosemary, thyme, oregano, coriander and fenugreek.
Most stew recipes call for little chunks of boneless leg or shoulder, but I like to make mine with big bony chunks of muscle meat that simmer until they melt. Like you don't mind removing bay leaves, thyme sprigs, spent corn cobs, lobster shells, or the bone of a crispy fried chicken drumstick from the morsels you consume, lamb bones add so much to the taste of a stew that they are worth every bit of the trouble of removing them before the meat hits your mouth.
Although I'd love to, I don't cook legs of lamb, because the chances of my assembling enough lamb lovers are slim. A crown roast of lamb ribs would be even more festive but even more frustrating to serve. If you invite over eight eaters, chances are three will be vegetarian and two will just plain hate lamb. You'll make a couple people real happy, though, especially if one of them is me.
If you make me that big roast anyway, don't serve me any cold leftovers. Unlike a fine chicken salad or cold red snapper Veracruz, lamb is no good cold, or even lukewarm, when it tastes of its waxy fat, stuff that hot is as sexy good as a dripping perfumed candle but cold can be unpleasant.
Lamb is the meat of Dads. Did yours ever make lamb? My own had a recipe for his grilled butterflied leg published in a small book of recipes by famous southern people. Every Easter my late father-in-law Angelo used to make half a baby lamb with peas and egg, a variation of a pan-Mediterranean dish that spans centuries: lamb or goat with spring vegetables that vary from artichokes to fava beans, plus egg and lemon and fresh herbs like mint or dill. I've made several killer versions of this classic, based on a recipe from Mediterranean the Beautiful Cookbook by Joyce Goldstein (Collins, 1994).
At the Brizzi Easter groaning board, my husband and I were about the only ones who would eat the baby lamb, and with gusto, so the year the butcher wouldn't let Angelo buy only half a lamb and he had to get a whole one, he gave me the half he didn't want, to cook myself at home. It included the half head, complete with brain, eye and tongue, that brought back shocking memories for me of lambs' heads rotating on spits in a café in Patras, Greece, a quarter century ago. Even the most luscious roast leg is a hard sell for most folks, so other lamb parts are well nigh impossible, as wondrous as I think they are: the stomach of a fine haggis, the kidneys with green pepper we ate a lot when I was a kid, marinated innards grilled on skewers in Greece and Sicily, the brains that Fergus Henderson calls in The Whole Beast (HarperCollins, 2004) "the gentle give and crunch combination," lamb "fries" a.k.a. mountain oysters a.k.a. French frivolités, or my favorite, pickled lamb tongues in a jar.
While not quite an odd part, the neck of the lamb is perfect for stewing. It's bonier and fattier than the shoulder and therefore more full of even more flavor and succulence. The best lamb stew I ever had was made by Angelo, and I asked him for his recipe. He made it with lamb neck meat on the bone, red and white wine and Kitchen Bouquet (!), plus a leek, a shallot, some garlic, two bay leaves, oregano and fresh mint, plus more at the end to garnish it.
When fall and winter chill you, stew or braise or roast some lamb. There's a reason the rest of the world is smarter than us when it comes to loving lamb; it warms the cockles of your belly. So don't wait for spring.
Ran in the column "Ravenous" in the Kingston Times and Highland Post-Pioneer, October 13, 2005
"We dote on lamb in any form."
----Craig Claiborne with Pierre Franey, The New York Times Magazine, June 5, 1983
Although it's in the spring that a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lamb (apologies to Tennyson), I crave it when it gets cold out. When I drag out the wool to wear, I want what comes under it, too: rich aromatic lamb dishes. I want murky, gelatinous stews, savory chops and hulking roasts. No food warms me better.
In Northern China they like lamb for the same reason, and the frigid northern reaches of the huge country are the only region where people like it. Beijing, the home of the crispy classic Peking Duck, is called the Mutton City of China. In small dark smoky eateries with thick padded weighted curtains at the door to keep out the cold, people hover around Mongolian hot pots that steam the air with the unique aroma of lamb, a big turnoff to any visitors from other parts of China. Other popular northern Chinese lamb dishes are Tung Po stewed lamb, much like an Irish stew with potatoes and carrots and onions, but with the additions of ginger and a touch of soy sauce, and a deconstructed 50-pound sheep boiled in a huge cauldron for hours with soy and herbs, then deep-fried in sesame oil.
We Americans eat less than a pound of lamb a year, on average, compared to 66 pounds of beef. Unlike our beloved salmon steaks or boneless skinless chicken breasts, most lamb comes on its bones (unless you buy it ground), reminding us uncomfortably, perhaps, that it is the flesh of what was once a live creature.
But I love lamb and always have, maybe because I ate tender and flavorful lamb as a kid instead of the gray gamey stuff it can be with poor quality meat and poor quality cooking.
And if any meat is cosmopolitan and world-traveled, it's lamb. I think of spicy aromatic Indian vindaloo, of gigot d'agneau studded with salt pork, of a Moroccan tajine with apricots, or a rich magenta Ukrainian borscht studded with bits of it. I think of those soothing pie-like preparations that I love to cook that are made with ground lamb (don't even think about using beef!), like real shepherds pie, like the luscious Greek moussaka of ground lamb sauce and eggplant topped with eggy bêchamel, and the similar South African bobotie with curry, raisins and almonds in the mix. I think more recently of the zesty, spicy lamb sausages I buy on Sundays at my local farmers market.
I love lamb shoulder chops and they are probably the cut I buy the most. Blade chops, with their strings of sinew, are better in a long-simmered braise when the connective tissue breaks down, but my favorite are the round bone chops, sort of an extension of the fore shank. They are much cheaper than the filet mignon of lamb, the frivolous tender tiny rib chops, two bucks a bite. Although shoulder chops lend themselves very well to that slow braise, I like to grill, broil or panfry them, too, after marinating them in lots of chopped or crushed garlic, cumin, marjoram, spearmint, salt and black and red peppers. Other good flavorings for lamb include lemon, parsley, dill, rosemary, thyme, oregano, coriander and fenugreek.
Most stew recipes call for little chunks of boneless leg or shoulder, but I like to make mine with big bony chunks of muscle meat that simmer until they melt. Like you don't mind removing bay leaves, thyme sprigs, spent corn cobs, lobster shells, or the bone of a crispy fried chicken drumstick from the morsels you consume, lamb bones add so much to the taste of a stew that they are worth every bit of the trouble of removing them before the meat hits your mouth.
Although I'd love to, I don't cook legs of lamb, because the chances of my assembling enough lamb lovers are slim. A crown roast of lamb ribs would be even more festive but even more frustrating to serve. If you invite over eight eaters, chances are three will be vegetarian and two will just plain hate lamb. You'll make a couple people real happy, though, especially if one of them is me.
If you make me that big roast anyway, don't serve me any cold leftovers. Unlike a fine chicken salad or cold red snapper Veracruz, lamb is no good cold, or even lukewarm, when it tastes of its waxy fat, stuff that hot is as sexy good as a dripping perfumed candle but cold can be unpleasant.
Lamb is the meat of Dads. Did yours ever make lamb? My own had a recipe for his grilled butterflied leg published in a small book of recipes by famous southern people. Every Easter my late father-in-law Angelo used to make half a baby lamb with peas and egg, a variation of a pan-Mediterranean dish that spans centuries: lamb or goat with spring vegetables that vary from artichokes to fava beans, plus egg and lemon and fresh herbs like mint or dill. I've made several killer versions of this classic, based on a recipe from Mediterranean the Beautiful Cookbook by Joyce Goldstein (Collins, 1994).
At the Brizzi Easter groaning board, my husband and I were about the only ones who would eat the baby lamb, and with gusto, so the year the butcher wouldn't let Angelo buy only half a lamb and he had to get a whole one, he gave me the half he didn't want, to cook myself at home. It included the half head, complete with brain, eye and tongue, that brought back shocking memories for me of lambs' heads rotating on spits in a café in Patras, Greece, a quarter century ago. Even the most luscious roast leg is a hard sell for most folks, so other lamb parts are well nigh impossible, as wondrous as I think they are: the stomach of a fine haggis, the kidneys with green pepper we ate a lot when I was a kid, marinated innards grilled on skewers in Greece and Sicily, the brains that Fergus Henderson calls in The Whole Beast (HarperCollins, 2004) "the gentle give and crunch combination," lamb "fries" a.k.a. mountain oysters a.k.a. French frivolités, or my favorite, pickled lamb tongues in a jar.
While not quite an odd part, the neck of the lamb is perfect for stewing. It's bonier and fattier than the shoulder and therefore more full of even more flavor and succulence. The best lamb stew I ever had was made by Angelo, and I asked him for his recipe. He made it with lamb neck meat on the bone, red and white wine and Kitchen Bouquet (!), plus a leek, a shallot, some garlic, two bay leaves, oregano and fresh mint, plus more at the end to garnish it.
When fall and winter chill you, stew or braise or roast some lamb. There's a reason the rest of the world is smarter than us when it comes to loving lamb; it warms the cockles of your belly. So don't wait for spring.
