Hi. My name is Peter. I drive a tow truck. I also love to cook and, most recently, have developed an obsession with barbecue. It is, after all, the tail end of summer which, in my mind, is the perfect time to be outdoors cooking.
My goal is to try a new dish, or variation thereof, each week and chronicle my triumphs and/or epic culinary failures (though I hope those will be few and far between). After each dish, I'll share some of the feedback I got, my own thoughts on the dish, and what might be better for next time. With any luck, things will go smoothly.
Now, since we've gotten all that business out of the way -- on to lamb!
I recently purchased an electric smoker unit (known in some circles as "ECB" for "El Cheapo Brinkman"), which makes it much easier to cook low-and-slow or to properly cook a very thick cut of meat without turning the outer layer into a nicely seasoned sheet of charcoal. I'll be using that on this particular dish.
The game plan is to season the lamb with some various complimentary herbs, then toss it on the smoker at around 240 degrees for around 3 hours (give or take) with some hickory wood imparting additional flavor along the way.
I used a seasoning blend of rosemary, thyme, herb de Provance (spelling? IDK, it's French), Kosher salt, lemon pepper, and summer savory. While I was doing that, I realized that no lamb is complete without garlic. I mean, garlic and rosemary are practically required when you make something like this. So, I shaved some slivers of garlic with a razor blade and tucked them into little 3/4 inch slits I made in the skin of the lamb along with adding about a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder (not garlic salt) into the herb mix. After getting a solid whiff of the herb concoction in front of me, I decided that would be plenty and proceeded to sprinkle it onto the meat, patting it down as I went.
I let the boneless lamb leg stand for a few minutes while I got the smoker prepped. Once the temperature got up to the 225-240 degree range, I put the lamb on the top rack, added some soaked hickory near the heating element, and closed'er up. I have to be careful not to keep opening that smoker to check the meat too often -- it's a nasty habit I've developed that seems to lead to longer-than-necessary cook times. :/
After about an hour, I checked the lamb and found it's internal temperature was in the 109-112 degree range... still quite rare. I closed it back up and let it keep doing its thing -- 135-140 degrees is medium rare for lamb and I want to get as close to that as possible before searing it.
Meantime, I decided to make a mint sauce from a recipe I found online. Personally, I don't think a mint sauce sounds like a good choice with lamb, but every book I've read says it's practically mandatory. It was a simple sauce consisting of water, sugar, salt, pepper, mint, and cider vinegar. After reducing that down some (too much water), I let it steep for a bit and went back to check my lamb.
By this point, an hour and a half later, the lamb was upwards of 135 degrees and it seemed like the perfect time to remove it from the smoker and give it a quick sear. I transferred the lamb to my Weber charcoal grill, which I had ready and waiting. Temperature on the grill was around 700 degrees, which is perfect to get some nice grill marks and a slight char flavor. I let it sear for about a minute on each side. Then I removed it from the grill, wrapped it in foil, then wrapped that with a couple old towels and put it in a warm cooler which I had heated up a bit with hot water.
The lamb rested in the foil for around a half hour to make sure the juices were sealed in -- didn't want to slice into it too early and lose moisture/flavor.
When I finally sliced into the meat, it was extremely tender and the flesh coloring was dead on with the medium rare pieces I'd seen in various cookbooks. The inside was nicely marbled, although I felt like the fat-cap (or whatever it's called) on the top was too thick. In retrospect, I probably should have trimmed that better pre-grill. Oh well.
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| Inside the meat, after slicing |
I added a bit of the mint sauce and took a bite, fully expecting to wince from the mint flavor being totally overpowering compared with the meat. To my surprise, it was not overpowering at all and, instead, gave the meat an extra dimension of flavor, bringing out some subtleties that I hadn't noticed before. All things considered, I was very pleased with the outcome.
I threw together a few other items including a Mediterranean salad in Balsamic dressing, garlic pesto bread, long wild rice with an herb butter to complete the plate. Then, dinner was served! The family thought it was great!
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| The finished plate |
Were I to make this again, I think I might try a different seasoning blend or dry rub, but just for the sake of trying something new -- the one I used turned out just the way I had hoped.
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