leg o' lamb o' god
we had family down for easter dinner on Sunday. Reen and I enjoyed putting the meal together very much. I searched for and pondered ideas for lamb, and settled on a recipe from Tony Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook, Gigot de Sept Heures. Which is French for 'braised lamb leg'.

I bought a 7 pound, semi-boneless leg o' lamb. The semi-boneless means that it has the femur part in there but not the knee joint, although there is meat from that area. So there's a large single bone for about 3/4 of the length, then a bunch of floppy muscle at the end. While at the grocery, there were also things labeled at 'boneless leg of lamb', but they were much smaller (2-3 pounds) little balls of meat held together by the elastic twine I've seen used on boneless pork shoulders. They had no resemblance to a leg of anything so I'm wondering what part of the animal they are from? If you boned out the piece that I bought and then rolled and tied it, it would still retain a clear leg/cyliner shape.

The first obstacle is that the recipe suggests a dutch oven for this but our large one wasn't quite large enough. I could have rammed it down in there but didn't think that was a good idea. So I picked up a proper roasting pan from the restaurant supply place. While certainly less than an All-Clad pan, it still cost more than the meat itself! Hopefully we'll get a lifetime of use from it.



I set the alarm for 5:30am Sunday and spent a quick 50 minutes putting this thing together. I first trimmed the fat from the top of the leg, which was quite thick in places. The fat is a cross between beef and pork fat. The larger areas were smooth like pork fat, but it also had a tendency to crumble a bit like suet does. I was happy with my trimming job, getting most of the fat and only nicking the meat in two places. From there I rubbed olive oil over the meat and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

I added one large chopped onion and 5 chopped carrots to the bottom of the pan, placed the meat on top, then added a bottle of white wine, 32oz of beef broth, 15-20 cloves of garlic and some parsley, thyme, bay leaf and rosemary bound up in cheesecloth.

I covered the pan tightly with heavy tin foil, trying for a good seal all around and then placed it into a 300 degree oven. And here's what came out seven hours later.



The top surface was a shade dry, but the desired effect of meat falling off the bone was achieved in spades. I was reminded of the pork butts that dad and I have made during the past year. The meat fell apart and was served like that, rather than in slices, which would have been impossible. The interior meat itself wasn't dried out per se, but also wasn't moist and unctuous like the pork butts were. It was somewhere in between. Some pieces were quite great while others seemed a bit dry.

We served this with simple boiled potatoes, asparagus, challa bread, kielbasa, and salad. The lamb was accompanied by simple mint sauce as well as an apricot/chipotle syrup.

So some notes:
the recipe does not suggest browning the meat prior to the braise, which is a bit odd. But seeing as I was tired and have never browned a huge chunk of meat with my oven broiler, I decided to pass. I think this would be a good step to include in the future.

the recipe does suggest studding the leg with slivers of garlic. With the sauces planned, I didn't feel this was necessary.

the recipe calls for only 1 cup of wine to serve as the braising liquid. My bottle of wine and the stock totaled just over 7 cups of liquid, although it still covered only the bottom inch or so of the meat. I'd guess that about 1/2 of that liquid was left in the pan when it was finished, so I'm glad I added extra. It is also some of the best tasting broth I've ever been responsible for making. The recipe asks you to make a flour/water dough and seal the lid of the dutch oven closed with that, but even still, 1 cup seems like too little liquid to me.

Final thoughts:
In general I'm not sold on the whole braised meats thing. Cooking something until it's 'falling off the bone' is not a goal in and of itself. The texture of these meats is not always devine and they are often fairly bland by themselves. What these dishes do offer is a chance to make an amazing sauce from the braising liquid.

At this point in my cooking education, I'd say leave the braise for meats which can't be cooked any other way. With this leg of lamb, I kept wishing it were charred outside and medium rare and pink inside. That's what meat is all about in my book.


Here's a pic of the lovely table that Reen set. We finally put our wedding china and silverware to use which was nice.