April 1st - Mint Marinated Leg of Lamb

Happy Birthday to Me!!

It's my birf-day.  It's my birf-day.  As a birf-day gift to myself, I am not going to blog very much today so I can spend a wonderful day outside!

THE RECIPE

Ingredients:

Olive oil: had

Red wine: $4.99

Mint: $1.99

Garlic: had

Bay leaves: had

Lamb: $18.00

Total: $24.98

First off, good luck finding a 5 lb leg of lamb, boned and butterflied.  This was next to impossible to find.  I searched everywhere again, even middle eastern grocery stores.  I finally came across a 4.5# lamb rump that had a bone in it.  Which I then removed and butterflied myself.   Also, lamb is not cheap.  $18 for lamb? I think that's the most I ever paid for meat in years.  But, it's my birthday and I thought I should treat myself.  So, to balance that off, I bought a huge bottle of cheap wine.

I would like to suggest adding fresh rosemary to the marinade.  There is just something about rosemary and lamb that work well together.  Also, I'm excited to have some cold lamb sandwiches tomorrow!  I'm going to make Julia Child's herb mayonnaise and have some sliced lamb on French bread and a little watercress.  Yummm!!!

THE RESULTS

FAST:  The lamb took a lot longer than the 35 minutes it says to cook it.  It actually took about 55 minutes.  Make sure to have a thermometer on hand, that's really the only way of checking to make sure this thing is done without overcooking it.   Also, make sure to let the lamb rest for at least 10 minutes so the juices redistribute.  Finally, the lamb also needs to marinate for 4 hours to overnight.  I did the overnight method.  So in reality, this is not a fast recipe.

EASY:  Trying to find the lamb for this recipe was not easy.  Boning out the lamb rump was not easy.  Everything else was super simple.  It's just marinating meat and throwing it in the oven.

FRESH:  Very.  Again, I should have added rosemary to the marinade.  It's good the way the recipe tells you to make it, but the rosemary would have added more depth to the flavor.

OVERALL:  If lamb wasn't so expensive, I would make it more often.  I really do like it.  I'm glad to have the leftovers too for sandwiches!   Overall, a pretty good recipe, but the key is to have that thermometer.  Overcooked lamb is chewy and too lamby tasting.  Plus, you don't want to ruin a $18 cut of meat.

Yippee.  Brian's and I are going to head into the city today to bum around.  It's going to be such a nice day!!  Tomorrow is soup.  See ya then!