I don't think I ever tried lamb before living in India. The Peshawri, a Punjabi restaurant in the Maratha Sheraton, was probably the best lamb I've had. http://www.itchotels.in/welcom...e_origin_brief.html#

We got excellent lamb in Australia as well. Does anyone have a special lamb recipe they recommend?

Love lamb. But other than prime cuts, like rack of and chops, you can substitute venison for most any lamb dish and never notice the difference -- vendalou (hot - sp.?), stews (I really like an Irish stew), or curries. Might want to add a little Olive Oil to offset the dryness of the venison.

I've substituted pronghorn antelope for several stew type dishes that were lamb based. They turned out just as good as if they had contained lamb.

I've eaten a lot of lamb in the Middle East and around Greece. Lamb seems better over there. I think it is because we allow lambs to get too big in the USA before we slaughter them. More of a mutton than lamb. And, the folks overseas have had lamb as aprt of their cultures for a long time. Americans are more into beef and pork. Goat is good too if it is prepared right.

I find goat and lamb best when live weight is 25-30 lbs. Much better before it turns into mutton. Best not to serve whole as guests might not approve [as my father found out when he ignored my instructions , ]
Lamb is better when you can find a Greek store to get it.Our favorite was to debone a leg and stuff it with a mild sausage of your choice.
The outside of the lamb is always good when you rub with garlic, lard ,and rosemary .that's been a favorite for thousands of years.

I would disagree with you on the preferred age of the sheep at slaughter . Lamb is tasteless as lamb. Much better to wait till the sheep is 3 or so before slaughter - its bigger and much tastier.

Heres my way of cooking a whole leg of lamb or mutton.

cut slits in the meat , all over . push slivers of garlic and slices of anchovy into the slits. Push a leaf of rosemary in as well. Do this all over the joint of meat .

Now coat the meat with the oil from the anchovies. Season with salt and pepper and place meat on a roasting rack in a deep pan. Place pan with lid into pre-heated oven at 200 degrees celsius. You will have to convert to degrees F but we have been metric since 1967 so who remebers degrees F here ?

After about 30 - 40 minutes turn the temperature down to about 160 degrees C , and leave to cook for a total of about 90 to 110 minutes.

Use the fat that has come out of the meat to roast potatoes and other vegetables of choice whilst you keep the meat warm , but just to let it rest , not cook further.

Carve it up and dig in.

My favorite recipe...a simplification of "Lamb Provencale" in "NY Times Int'l. Cookbbook":
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tsp each: sage, thyme, rosemary
Blend well.....and marinate meat in fridge overnight....grill or roast meat while basting.
SUPER on lamb and venison

Lamb can taste really good especially the ribs on charcoal but most of the time tastes too strong.I think this has to do with how the meat is handled.It is very easy for meat to warm up and when it does it tastes terrible.Everything has to be kept cool and aerated from the moment the animal is killed to consumption.

Muzza:

Never thought about putting anchovies in the slits -- garlic, bacon, onion, yes, but it never occured to me to put anchovies in there. Love anchovies, love the idea; can't wait to try it.

Leg of Lamb:

Cut slits in roast, insert garlic, number and spacing to taste

Coat leg with tobasco sauce or cayenne pepper (lightly), sprinkle heavily with salt, fairly coarse grind pepper, and coat with herbs de provence. You can add garlic powder if you wish, to taste.

Cook on medium high heat until rare/med rare at bone.

Note: This is a Texas/Louisiana recipe which tends to assault the taste buds. If you don't like it spiced up, simply cut back on amount to spices used.

I go with Gatagordo's recipe for roast.

Costillas or lamb ribs herb, salt and pepper rubbed and slow roasted are to good to believe in my book.

Of course lam cops are killer eats.

Grew up eating mutton . . . I like Lamb, it is good eats.

I have eaten lamb all of my life. Here's how my father and then I have cooked it.

1 leg of lamb with the lanolin sac removed.

Place half cloves of garlic in slits made in the meat and then salt and pepper the complete lamb. Then spread a yellow mustard paste over the lamb. On completing then sprinkle again with salt,pepper,onion and garlic powder. I use dry mint flakes and sprinkle the lamb generously with the mint. I then peel and halve 2 sweet yellow onions and place them in the rosting pan with the lamb. When cooking I usually add some water and white wine,with about a half teaspoon of kitchen bouquet and 1 tbs worstercher sause to make the gravy,mix this in a glass and add about at 1 hour cooking. Cook in pan covered with foil at 325 degrees until meat thermometer reads 165 or well done. remove foil and raise oven temp to 375 for 10 minutes to brown the top. De fat the gravy and serve with mint jelly. I usually serve with a good caesar salad, sourdough bread, and roasted potatoes. Bon Appetit

Goes great with a fine french burgundy like a Chambolle Musingy or Chambertin.

996

When you say "well done", do you mean it? Most people, chefs, like to cook it Medium-Rare to barely Medium, to avoid it getting tough. My wife cooks lamb to what I would call Medium, still pink in the middle.