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Leg of Lamb


Ron Johnson

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Ron,

I grill my butterflied leg O' lamb over direct coals for about 15-20 minutes total for medium/rare. Let rest 10 min carve and enjoy.

Prior to cooking, I also throw a couple of metal skewers horizontally thorough the lobes of flesh to hold it together tighter. Makes for more even cooking

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This is what we had for Easter, roasted in the oven. We took it out at 135 degrees and it was too done. We were using various cookbooks to figure out when to take it out and we should have stuck with Julia Child's recommendation. 125 - 130 would have been better.

Practice Random Acts of Toasting

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What if the leg is bone-in? How much longer would you have to cook it?

Depending on the method anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour. The bone doesn't transfer heat as well as muscle mass because of the lack of water. For smoking red meat and pulling it off at medium rare this is a great way to leave the leg in the smoker longer.

I smoke mine and if I'm on a roll (i.e. the fire is really low), I'll smoke it for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. This allows for any of cloves of garlic to cook and to get as much smokiness as possible in the meat. Red meats don't pick up the smokiness like poultry and pork does.

I also like to do a combination of smoking and grilling on the Weber. Get the coals nice and hot and grill for a minute or two per side all the while the top is off of the grill. Move the coals to one side of the kettle, add wood chips, place the leg on the other side and smoke for as long as possible until the internal temp is 130.

Schielke, adding rosemary branches is a really good idea; up until now I've just been putting the leaves in the marinade.

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  • 10 months later...

I'm looking for some ideas on what to do with a huge leg of lamb for sunday lunch (mothering sunday here) I'd like to jazz it up a little

My usual way is to just pierce the lamb all over and stick sprigs of rosemary and slivers of garlic in the holes. Then I roast it and make plain gravy from the pan juices.

Any ideas for accompaniments would be appreciated too.

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Made lamb last night that I marinated in Pomegranate jiuce & Garlic, then served with a mint/almond/garlic gremolata

served with yoghurt, cumin, garlic & mint marinated roasted carrots, spring onion & courgette

& Room temp quinoa w. diced tomato, spring onin, mint & myer lemon vinagrette.

It was really good and the pomegrante juice made a it a goregeous red w. a shiny glaze

If you wish to stay traditional, I would maybe add to your lamb (which sounds delicious)

baby carrots & snap peas tossed with mint & orange butter

fingerling potatoes roasted with grainy mustard & rosemary & garlic

or how about

Rubbing the lamb with garlic (as you do), cumin, orange & mint

Minty asparagus

Black olive mashed potatoes (w.preserved lemon if you have)

(I obviously have a mint thing going on, I just Love it with lamb,long as it's not vile mint jelly)

good luck! have fun

"sometimes I comb my hair with a fork" Eloise

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One of my new favourite ways is to let the lamb marinate overnight in red wine, garlic and herbs. Before baking I just encrust the entire surface with black olive tapenade. You can sear it an all sides if you want before putting it in the oven but I prefer just to roast it straight like that.

Serve with a simple roasted ratatouille, roast potatoes and it's great.

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Americans don't eat lamb.

They should! It's delicious.

Thanks for all the yummy ideas. Lamb season here, so I look forward to trying several of them out.

For this weekend I'think I'll either go for Aliwacks idea:

Rubbing the lamb with garlic (as you do), cumin, orange & mint

Minty asparagus

Black olive mashed potatoes (w.preserved lemon if you have)

OR

Larry's marinating/tapenade method, cos my Mum just loves olives.

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I'm American, and I eat lamb. I love the stuff and prefer it to all other meat. I like the simple preparation of garlic, rosemary salt and pepper, for a roast leg of lamb at home. I like it with pan gravy or a blackberry-whiskey sauce if I'm feeling frisky :raz: . MMMMM. Lamb. Even when I was vegetarian, I'd eat lamb a couple times of year.

I think there are a lot of great ideas here, and I think I may have to try the olive thing soon!

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Americans don't eat lamb.

That was an attempt at humor, right? :smile: I sure hope so... have lots of great suggestions for lamb, but looks like ample ideas have already been posted.

Life is short; eat the cheese course first.

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Well, it is kinda true that lamb isn't as popular here in America as say, chicken or beef. (Probably due to the "grassy/gamy" flavor that turns some people off.)

What can I say? More for us!

heheh

Actually, I'm a HUGE fan of braised lamb shanks, but that's another topic for another thread.

Soba

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Yeah, that WAS supposed to be humor. We had a big, um, discussion about that a few months ago. :hmmm:

I was going to suggest coating it with a mixture of white miso, roasted garlic, and either oil or fat trimmed off the outside, all pureed together. Worked well on beef roast, would probably do well on lamb as well.

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Yeah, that WAS supposed to be humor. We had a big, um, discussion about that a few months ago.  :hmmm:

I see... :unsure:

Thanks for splainin it to me. I felt like I missed something, and I did! :smile:

Life is short; eat the cheese course first.

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I'm American and I eat lamb! In fact, I'm serving it for a dinner party tonight. I like to butterfly it, pound it more or less the same thickness, marinade it overnight, then grill it. Usually I do an Asian marinade, but tonight I'm doing one from a Mark Bittman column a few months back: rosemary, lavender, thyme (all growing in my garden); garlic, olive oil, fennel seeds, salt, and pepper-crushed together in a morter & pestle. I sear it on high heat on a gas grill, then turn it down & cook over medium heat until done. I'm serving it w/ white beans (made per the dried bean thread) and roasted asparagus.

Edited by marie-louise (log)
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