lamb: beyond the roasted leg

[ChrisTaylor]

I've put my hand up, perhaps stupidly, for hosting a beer, cider & lamb night. My idea--and I have co-conspirators in this, so I'm not alone--is to offer an informal degustation of lamb dishes. Many different dishes, ideally easily and cleanly consumed without cutlery, that cover the various facets of the lovely beast that is the lamb. I want to focus primarily on the interesting, relatively inexpensive cuts such as offal, neck, shank, shoulder (my favourite) and so on.

I've a handful of ideas in mind. Some:

• nuggets of poached and crumbed and deep-fried brains
  
• sosatie skewers
  
• something involved lamb neck ragu
  
• lamb tartare with, I don't know, fresh mint? tomatoes?
  
• chevapi
  

I'm in need of--and open to any and all--suggestions. Things I might not have thought of. And, too, ways of turning some large dishes into small portions I could easily sit in a cup, on a little Chinese soup spoon, on a skewer, etc.

[lesliec]

Lamb spareribs would meet your criteria - with a bit of luck/skill they'll come out with delicious 'lamb crackling' and you can hit them with mint sauce for the traditional touch.

I don't know about the tartare. I certainly like my lamb a bit pink, but not sure about raw - you can catch more from a sheep than from a cow (but not as much as from a pig).

[ChrisTaylor]

Totally forgot about lamb ribs. Lamb ribs are lovely.

You raise an interesting point about tartare. I've never actually had it ... altho' I do possess a recipe for, I shit you not, lamb heart tartare.

[ChefCrash]

Sounds like fun. For the tartare I suggest Lebanese Kafta.

1 lb freshly ground lamb 90/10 lean/fat. Best if you grind it yourself making sure you first remove all gristle and silver skin.

1 small white onion 2.5" in diameter ~ 120gr very finely chopped.

1 bunch tender flat leaf parsley very finely chopped.

1 tsp salt plus more to taste.

Black pepper to taste.

You can buzz the onion and parsley in a food processor.

Mix everything together and serve.

Alternately, you could form into small balls and saute or grill and serve warm.

[Chris Amirault]

I really like the Lamb with Apples recipe in Society member Paula Wolfert's Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean.

[MelissaH]

Could you make pasties filled with a lamb stew?

MelissaH

[ChrisTaylor]

I was thinking that for the lamb neck ragu, actually.

[johnmc]

Small skewers of leg marinated in Charmain Solomon's "Lamb Kebabs" Marinade

[Baron d'Apcher]

May not be what the OP had in mind, but just posted this under the pork crown roast thread.

Crown rack of lamb “Mazarine”

Nestled among artichokes stuffed with spring flavors, fragrant brown rice and a few handsomely fluted mushrooms

[jackal10]

Lancashire hotpot (best end of neck or scrag of lamb stewed with onions and potatoes)

Lamb curry

Boned stuffed and rolled shoulder

lamb liver wth bacon, or onion

lamb kidneys with sherry and mustard

lamb heart (stuffed, braised)

Donar kebab

boiled leg (better with mutton)

scotch pies (minced lamb in pastry and gravy)

[Blether]

Well, jackal10 beat me to it, but Scotch Pie - strictly a mutton delicacy, but shown nicely by a chap from Otago Polytechnic

.

And someone has to say it, so I will: haggis. Scottish fish 'n chip joints serve it for finger-eating in pudding form - a large sausage shape, battered (naturally !) and deep fried. You could do the same thing, or simply serve it as sausages or crepinettes, or, hell, even as sausage rolls.

Brief cultural history of haggis. There are a number of haggis threads around here.

There are of course any number of kofta preparations from North India and across the Middle East.

Doner kebabs done properly, as by the

(warning: tyneside accents), would be an excellent show piece. Edited April 19, 2011 by Blether (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Haggis hamburgers would be pretty sexy, no?

[Blether]

Why not ? You would need to bind a normal haggis mixture to get it to stay together - beaten egg ? Or just go the caul fat - crepinettes route and call them burgers anyway ?

[ChrisTaylor]

I doubt I'd bother making the haggis myself, given getting my hands on fresh offal In Melbourne isn't as easy as you'd think. More than a few butchers will sell you offal, yeah, but it's usually frozen and I often question the rate of turnover. I can buy reasonable pre-made haggis from a British butcher. Slice it up. Throw the 'patties' into a griddle pan and make mini-burgers. Throw in some, I don't know, bacon, caramelised onion, maybe some kind of pickle and, of course, much tomato sauce.

[ChrisZ]

I love lamb backstraps on the BBQ. (That's an Australian BBQ, which is flame-grilled to everyone else).

And I agree that you should include liver - the traditional lamb's fry!

Now you've made me crave lambs brains, I loved them as a kid. Maybe try deep-frying them in panko crumbs just to accentuate the difference in textures...

It's all good, honest farmers food.

[hathor]

I travel for lamb meatballs with a mint/yogurt sauce.

[DanM]

I wonder if you can make a lamb carbonnade to bring together the beer and lamb theme together.

Dan

[Rico]

How long do you have? jmolinari's got a pretty cool take on lamb prosciutto here: http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/2010/01/lamb-prosciutto.html

(edited to add that yes, I know you asked for something other than the leg, but this is so unique it thought it might not matter)

Edited April 19, 2011 by Rico (log)

[thirtyoneknots]

Hardly easy to find but restaurant biz people may be able to source you some lamb tenderloins--they are a little bigger than magic markers and lend themselves quite nicely to hors d'ouvres and, I'd imagine, tartare. Food people seem to often have love/hate relationships with tenderloin but you can't deny there's novelty in lamb tenderloin. And at least where I've gotten it, it's cheaper than bone-in rib rack, for whatever that's worth.

edited for errant punctuation

Edited April 19, 2011 by thirtyoneknots (log)

[heidih]

Stuffed grape leaves with a ground lamb filling fit the bill for finger food and can be done with whatever flavorings you think will complement the beer and other items.

[Snadra]

Hardly easy to find but restaurant biz people may be able to source you some lamb tenderloins--they are a little bigger than magic markers and lend themselves quite nicely to hors d'ouvres and, I'd imagine, tartare. Food people seem to often have love/hate relationships with tenderloin but you can't deny there's novelty in lamb tenderloin. And at least where I've gotten it, it's cheaper than bone-in rib rack, for whatever that's worth.

edited for errant punctuation

Ah! But this is the land-of-lamb!! Would you believe we can get lamb tenderloins at the grocery store even in the outer suburbs where I live? Of course, when I saw them the other week they were nearly $43/kg... I agree with you though, they are truly delicious.

With regards to the OP, Neil Perry's shredded lamb shoulder came immediately to mind. I have made it three times now, although I used vietnamese pickled chiles instead of making the salted ones. It's perfect at room temperatures or slightly warmer, and it's really nice with some steamed buns and marinated cucumbers and/or carrot. You could make little stuffed rolls out of them using chinese buns (baked or steamed) and lightly pickled veg of some kind.

Another thought was a variation on manti: you could make small ones and serve them on a spoon with yogurt sauce and an herb topping.

Also, one of my favourite things at the Uighyur restaurant in Sydney is 'special fried lamb pastry'. I think it's quite similar to chebureki or samsa: basically a baked/fried dough stuffed with lamb. I know I've got a recipes for both (thanks to eat your books!) so PM me if you'd like a recipe.

Finally, YES to others' support for some sort of kebab/kofta/chevapi skewer.

Thisthreadhasbeenapprovedby

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[thirtyoneknots]

Wow that's quite pricey, I think I saw them for maybe a little under $10/lb, though it was an industry price. I do recall it being cheaper than the (at the time) $11/lb rib rack.

If ChrisTaylor can get the smoker he's been talking about elsewhere, those braise-ready cuts like neck and shoulder can be brined, rubbed, and smoked for a long time to excellent effect.

Here's one: does anyone know if something like head cheese/brawn can be made from ovines? Now that would be something.

[djyee100]

I suggest that North African classic, spicy lamb merguez sausages.

[ChrisTaylor]

I was walking down the street earlier today and saw that my neighbours were cooking a whole lamb (and a large joint of pork, too) on a spit. And it got me thinking. At this stage we have about 20 people coming. The number could creep up to around 30. I'd realised I'd be buying and cooking a lot of lamb (be it mince, neck or whatever) and would probably, to make my life easier, be buying a cheap BBQ to do a lot of the work. I'm now entertaining the idea of buying a whole lamb (which I think I can get for about $8-9 per kilogram) and hiring a spit.

Thoughts? Anyone done this before?

[thirtyoneknots]

Never done it but there is a pretty good tutorial on the egullet culinary institute for roasting a whole pig with a contraption that in some parts is indelicately known as a "coonass microwave"--basically a pit full of hot coals with a pig suspended over it and over the pig, a sheet of metal to reflect heat back down. Supposed to work great, if you have the option of digging the decent-sized hole the operation requires. No reason I can think of it wouldn't be applicable for lamb.

And of course in South Texas (and Mexico), pit-roasting whole goats and pigs is quite a lovely tradition. I've never seen it done up close but my understanding is that it involved burying the animal over a bed of hot coals, sort of like the Hawaiian pig roast.

Options if you don't want to mess with a spit.