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I want to make lamb 'gravy'


Kim Shook

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I am doing a boneless lamb roast for Easter and I want gravy. Really rich, good gravy. I have some leftover red wine jus (from Keller's Bouchon cookbook) in the freezer. I would love some help in making a delicious sauce - the kind of thing you end up sopping up with bread rather than waste. I want it to be thick and very, very rich. Thanks so much!

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If you want to make the ultimate richest sauce ever, here is my procedure:

Get a whole bunch of young lamb ribs from your butcher. Trim off most of the visible fat from the ribs and dice into small pieces. Render out the lamb fat and reserve the cracklings. Coat the ribs with the lamb fat and roast in a hot oven until well browned. Make a lamb stock out of the browned bones, some carrots, some onions, garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, a 1/4 cup of red wine and a tiny dab of tomato paste.

Then, get the lamb bones and pull them through a pasta machine, squeezing out the marrow fluid and saving. Get 1 cup of the strained lamb stock and put it in with the reserved cracklings and blend until a paste is formed. Reduce the lamb stock down to almost a demiglace, add back in the marrow fluid and the cracklings and then reduce down further.

While doing that, take 1 tbsp of lamb fat and 1 tbsp of slightly softened butter and mix together until completely combined and chill. Once the sauce is at a nappe consitency (it coats the back of a spoon), season, then whisk in the 2 tbsp of butter/lamb fat (the lecithin in the butter will act as an emulsifier).

This will be the richest sauce you have ever tasted. But at the same time, it doesn't taste overreduced like a beef demiglace would be because of the balance of different lamb flavours. I have only ever made this once and the only way to experience it straight is to just put a drop of the sauce on the back of your hand and lick it off and savour the taste for 30 seconds.

But diluted with a bit of blonde roux and water, it makes a very, very good gravy.

PS: I am a guy.

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Get a whole bunch of young lamb ribs from your butcher. Trim off most of the visible fat from the ribs and dice into small pieces. Render out the lamb fat and reserve the cracklings. Coat the ribs with the lamb fat and roast in a hot oven until well browned. Make a lamb stock out of the browned bones, some carrots, some onions, garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, a 1/4 cup of red wine and a tiny dab of tomato paste.

Then, get the lamb bones and pull them through a pasta machine, squeezing out the marrow fluid and saving. Get 1 cup of the strained lamb stock and put it in with the reserved cracklings and blend until a paste is formed. Reduce the lamb stock down to almost a demiglace, add back in the marrow fluid and the cracklings and then reduce down further.

While doing that, take 1 tbsp of lamb fat and 1 tbsp of slightly softened butter and mix together until completely combined and chill. Once the sauce is at a nappe consitency (it coats the back of a spoon), season, then whisk in the 2 tbsp of butter/lamb fat (the lecithin in the butter will act as an emulsifier).

This will be the richest sauce you have ever tasted. But at the same time, it doesn't taste overreduced like a beef demiglace would be because of the balance of different lamb flavours. I have only ever made this once and the only way to experience it straight is to just put a drop of the sauce on the back of your hand and lick it off and savour the taste for 30 seconds.

But diluted with a bit of blonde roux and water, it makes a very, very good gravy.

Pulling the bones through a pasta machine ????

Say What.

Trimming out the fat and rendering it only to then roast the meat /bones from which the fat was sourced is simply redundant and a waste of time.

You should just roast the bones.

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Pulling the bones through a pasta machine ????

Say What.

Trimming out the fat and rendering it only to then roast the meat /bones from which the fat was sourced is simply redundant and a waste of time.

You should just roast the bones.

Have you ever sucked out the spongy marrow from inside a lamb bone? Thats rich, deep flavour which never makes it into a stock normally.

The rendering of the lamb fat is to get the cracklings. The fat is simply a bonus.

PS: I am a guy.

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Why unusual?

A reduced lamb stock is conventional and delicious Thickened with pureed cracklings is ingenious, but I'm not sure how well it will work.

Adding the marrow is also good, but I doubt if you get a significant amount, or if there is much flavour in it after making the stock, if you chopped the bones. Might do better with the marrow from a leg bone, or roast off bones for marrow seperately. I'd also be concerned about bone taint.

Finished with butter is conventional, adding some lamb fat to that is a nice idea.

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Finished with butter is conventional, adding some lamb fat to that is a nice idea.

The fist thing they teach you in sauce and stock making in any cooking school is clarity (of viscousity and flavor)

Butter will emulsify by stratification into meat Jus.

Meat Fat just tastes oily and nasty.

could someone give me a practical idea that I might actually use 

Practical being the keyword..

Go to the butcher and buy some inespensive lamb cuts such as a bone in shoulder or neck bones.

Roast them in the oven and use them along with standard mirepoix plus tomato and chix stock to make a nice lamb jus. Since you are reading the Bouchon book, check out the sauce section of the Laundry book.

To make a just into a gravy, you could always thicken with a bit of brown roux, though I dont really use roux for sauces, its great for gravies.

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The fist thing they teach you in sauce and stock making in any cooking school is clarity (of viscousity and flavor)

Butter will emulsify by stratification into meat Jus.

Meat Fat just tastes oily and nasty.

Yeah, but in cooking school, they teach you how to make food that will make money. For home cooking, I don't see the point in a clarified sauce, it's an unneccesary effort and results in a loss of flavour all for the sake of better presentation.

I dont know what you mean by stratification but Butter emulsifies into a sauce because of the lecithin in it acts as am emulsifier. The lecithin in butter is enough to easily emulsify several times the amount of fat which means it can be used to incorporate other fat flavours into a sauce.

The only reason why I've made it just once is because I don't usually make ala minute demiglaces, especially of lamb. If your commiting the effort of making a demiglace anyway, then it's not much extra effort. Forget about coating the ribs in lamb fat and just use vegtable oil and you can do the cracklings while the ribs are roasting. The butter thing only takes 2 minutes.

You can leave the whole marrow thing out if you want, it added a nice but not essential flavour. I think theres a bit of a misunderstanding when I say marrow. I don't mean the soft, gelatinous marrow inside leg bones which, although has a nice texture, would be far too subtle a flavour and get lost. I mean the liquid trapped in the spongy marrow of the rib bones which has a bold, assertive flavour and is very intense.

When I did this, I only simmered the bones for 3 - 4 hours or so so there was still plenty of structural integrity left in them.

PS: I am a guy.

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I am doing a boneless lamb roast for Easter and I want gravy.  Really rich, good gravy.  I have some leftover red wine jus (from Keller's Bouchon cookbook) in the freezer.  I would love some help in making a delicious sauce - the kind of thing you end up sopping up with bread rather than waste.  I want it to be thick and very, very rich.  Thanks so much!

I had to read Shalmanese's post again (too many words) :biggrin: to realize his procedure is may be a little more involved but not that complicated.

Considering you cook from Keller's books he may have assumed you wanted a very special gravy, as he put it:"If you want to make the ultimate richest sauce ever...".

Is anything Keller do "practical..simple.."?

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I am doing a boneless lamb roast for Easter and I want gravy.  Really rich, good gravy.  I have some leftover red wine jus (from Keller's Bouchon cookbook) in the freezer.  I would love some help in making a delicious sauce - the kind of thing you end up sopping up with bread rather than waste.  I want it to be thick and very, very rich.  Thanks so much!

I had to read Shalmanese's post again (too many words) :biggrin: to realize his procedure is may be a little more involved but not that complicated.

Considering you cook from Keller's books he may have assumed you wanted a very special gravy, as he put it:"If you want to make the ultimate richest sauce ever...".

Is anything Keller do "practical..simple.."?

Point taken, Chef :laugh: ! The reason I have that red wine jus left over is that I made the Bouchon skirt steak w/ caramelized shallots for Valentine's Day dinner. I think that kind of involved, intricate cooking is fun, but not something I can really indulge in all that often. I just thought that since I DID have some left over, I might be able to shortcut a good lamb gravy with it. Thanks for the imput everyone. Off to find some lamb bones!

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I have cooked lamb many times and would like to suggest a simple but effective recipe. the key is the quality of the meat and the use of olive oil. Whatever you do, do not use the lamb fat in your gravy. Use olive oil instead.

1. Season the roast with a lot of garlic, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a mix of oregano and rosemary.

2. When you start the roasting process, use top heat for 20 minutes, and turn the leg a couple of times. You need a nice crisp surface all over the meat volume.

3. After that reduce heat to medium, add the garlic and cover the baking tray with aluminum foil.

4. Roast for 30 minutes for every kilo of meat. This is for a well done leg.

5. Remove from the overn remove the foil, collect the juice that should be plenty for your gravy, and all the garlic. Leave the meat to rest for 30 minutes before serving.

6, Remove the fat from the meat juice, add olive oil and all the garlic (which is very tender by now), a few drops of lemon juice and place in a pan. Add a little flower and simmer over very low heat until it thickens. You do not need anything else!

Good luck!

athinaeos

civilization is an everyday affair

the situation is hopeless, but not very serious

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I have cooked lamb many times and would like to suggest a simple but effective recipe. the key is the quality of the meat and the use of olive oil. Whatever you do, do not use the lamb fat in your gravy. Use olive oil instead.

I don't have much experience with lamb, so I'm looking to educate myself. Why do you advise using olive oil and not lamb fat?

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Why do you advise using olive oil and not lamb fat?

it is a mater of taste:

i find that lamb fat has very strong taste and overpowers the subtle variances of the meat's taste, provided of course that we have quality meat

i therefore prefer to use extra virgin olive oil that works quite nicely with the garlic, oregano and rosemary, and creates with the meat's juice a very fine and subtle complement to the meat

athinaeos

civilization is an everyday affair

the situation is hopeless, but not very serious

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Shalmanese, I've just read and reread your recipe, an although there are extra steps in it(separating the fat for crackling, running the bones through a pasta roller), the basic is very similar to my mother's lamb gravy recipe. She didn't add bay leaves, and she often added parsley. "Too time consuming! Only for special occasions!", she would say, but it really wasn't a lot of work, and she just wanted to make sure that Dad was appreciative! It ended up being made often, because my father adored lamb with gravy.

I think that Kim Shook can adapt your recipe a tiny bit and make a delicious, amazing gravy. I would take Jackal10's advice and for marrow, buy and roast a leg bone, instead of worrying about the juice from the rib bones, and I would probably also cook the stock for a very long time, and perhaps do shallots or spring onions in place of plain yellow.

My mother would NEVER have put the extra marrow into a gravy, she always ate every last bit herself, I think that she would laugh if we asked her to share!

Maybe some parsley, too. But, that's just my Middle Eastern self!

Also, Meat Fat? It tastes delicious. Especially with a little wine, and finesse.

edited by me to add: lamg, jejeje!

Edited by Rebecca263 (log)

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