# Lamb steaks



## Annageckos (Feb 2, 2015)

It turns out I love lamb, I had never tried it before a couple of weeks ago when I made lamb shoulder steaks for my boyfriend and I. Today I picked up lamb steaks cut from the leg, they have a small piece of bone. Given my limited experience with lamb I was wondering if there is any special way I should cook this. The shoulder steaks I marinaded in lemon, garlic, rosemary, salt/pepper, olive oil and mustard then cooked in my cast iron skillet. It was great and tender. I was thinking of doing it that way again. But I'm open to suggestions.


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## Mad Cook (Feb 2, 2015)

Annageckos said:


> It turns out I love lamb, I had never tried it before a couple of weeks ago when I made lamb shoulder steaks for my boyfriend and I. Today I picked up lamb steaks cut from the leg, they have a small piece of bone. Given my limited experience with lamb I was wondering if there is any special way I should cook this. The shoulder steaks I marinaded in lemon, garlic, rosemary, salt/pepper, olive oil and mustard then cooked in my cast iron skillet. It was great and tender. I was thinking of doing it that way again. But I'm open to suggestions.


Yes, that would work well with the leg steaks. I love lamb too.



In the UK we use rosemary with lamb but also use mint.


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## Cooking4to (Feb 2, 2015)

That sounds delicious, lamb is one of them dishes when done right can be just different enough {vs, pork, chicken , beef} that having it once and a while can be a real treat.  
My favorite way to cook lamb is to marinade and herb encrust it {cooked in the oven}.
 I have the recipe written in my book it was given to me by a chef at a restaurant in NYC, we were invited to a catered event and the lamb was AMAZING, so when the chef came around I politely asked if the recipe would be available for me to look over, after complimenting him on his dish.  He pulled out a card and handed it to me with the recipe typed onto it, I guess I wasn't the first to ask, lol...

I haven't made it in a while but the marinade has white wine and Orange juice in it, simply the best lamb I have ever tasted...

Congrats on finding a dish you love, and welcome to dc...


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## Cheryl J (Feb 2, 2015)

Hi Anna.  I love lamb, too...most of the time I don't even marinate it. I rub it with a little garlic, rosemary (if I have some) and fry it in a hot cast iron skillet and flip it once so it stays near med rare.  It's just me here though, so most times I'm just cooking for one.


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## Annageckos (Feb 2, 2015)

The first time I made it I followed a simple recipe just because I had never had it before. But I really liked the lamb flavor, so I might go light on the seasoning. I'm glad I finally tired lamb, next is rabbit and goat. Duck is another thing I've tried recently and really liked.


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## Bookbrat (Feb 2, 2015)

Another lamb convert here. I think I'd been fed overcooked lamb or mutton years ago, because I thought I didn't like it, but then I had some grilled lamb at our favorite Mediterranean place that was marinated much like yours and grilled. Now we buy a 4H lamb at our county fair every summer.

I usually do a very similar marinade, trying to mimic the restaurant's...olive oil, white wine, a bit of lemon juice, garlic, rosemary and/or oregano, then onto my cast iron grill pan. It's the way we like it best. I never thought about mustard...will have to try that.

I have the shoulders cut into roasts because I thought they would make tough steaks. Good to know...next year I'll have them do half into steaks.


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## Addie (Feb 3, 2015)

I think my very favorite lamb dish is lamb stew with barley. And we have just the right weather right now for a good pot of it. 

You sound like an adventure food traveler. It is fun to find foods that you like. 

Welcome to DC. This is quite a fun place to come to. Lots of fun and information.


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## CraigC (Feb 3, 2015)

If you also like eggplant, you might like Moussaka. Don't forget the Tzatziki to go with it!


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## Steve Kroll (Feb 3, 2015)

Lamb is wonderful and can pretty much be treated the same way as beef. My only suggestion is, whatever you decide, don't over cook it.


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## Annageckos (Feb 3, 2015)

Moussaka looks good, I'll have to give that a try sometime. I haven't seen ground lamb around here, but I have a meat grinder so I can always make my own.
Most of my family cooks, my mom has always worked in some type of kitchen and is now a cook in a hospital. I have a cousin who went to culinary school. While we always ate well and the food was always good it was pretty much always typical meat. I'm just now trying all kinds of different food. I'll try anything, almost anything, at least once.


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## medtran49 (Feb 3, 2015)

Annageckos said:


> Moussaka looks good, I'll have to give that a try sometime. I haven't seen ground lamb around here, but I have a meat grinder so I can always make my own.
> .


 
Try this recipe, Moussaka Recipe - NYT Cooking , it's adapted from the book "Taste" by David Rosengarten.  It's become our favorite.  BTW, before we got the meat grinder, I'd either ask the guys working in the meat dept at the grocery to grind some lamb for me or, if I didn't have time to wait, I'd chunk it, put in freezer for a few minutes and then use the food processor to grind it.  Probably still would for such a small amount instead of dragging grinder out and then having to clean.


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## Mad Cook (Feb 3, 2015)

Steve Kroll said:


> Lamb is wonderful and can pretty much be treated the same way as beef. My only suggestion is, whatever you decide, don't over cook it.


My particular choice with lamb is that it should be pink. However, until fairly recently that wasn't the usual way over here but the influence of television chefs have altered that.

I was once served a lamb chop rare in France. Thereby hangs a tale but it was delicious!


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## Mad Cook (Feb 3, 2015)

CraigC said:


> If you also like eggplant, you might like Moussaka. Don't forget the Tzatziki to go with it!


 I used to find that moussaka was too greasy for me due to the oil absorbed when the aubergine/egg plant was fried. Then a friend's mother, herself Greek, told me to paint a little olive oil on both sides of the slices of aubergine and grill/broil them. 

She also made the sauce for the top of the moussaka with a mixture of yoghourt and egg beaten together rather than the béchamel often given in  a lot of recipes. 

She said that both things are authentic so that's how I do it now.


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## medtran49 (Feb 3, 2015)

Mad Cook said:


> I used to find that moussaka was too greasy for me due to the oil absorbed when the aubergine/egg plant was fried. Then a friend's mother, herself Greek, told me to paint a little olive oil on both sides of the slices of aubergine and grill/broil them.
> 
> She also made the sauce for the top of the moussaka with a mixture of yoghourt and egg beaten together rather than the béchamel often given in a lot of recipes.
> 
> She said that both things are authentic so that's how I do it now.


 
You should try the link I posted above.  The whole eggplant is roasted, cooled, sliced and then lightly fried in some olive oil.  There's nothing TOO much about it, not too much oil, too much tomato sauce, or too much béchamel.  I usually peel the skin off after frying because something in eggplant makes me itchy if I have too much of it and taking the skin off seems to help, plus I'm not really fond of the texture of the skin. 

I do try to use mizithra cheese though when I can get it instead of pecorino romano but it doesn't really make that much of a difference, especially if you've never had the mizithra before.


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## CharlieD (Feb 3, 2015)

Though lamb and rabbit bot wonderful, I'd be careful with goat.


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## Annageckos (Feb 3, 2015)

Mad Cook said:


> My particular choice with lamb is that it should be pink. However, until fairly recently that wasn't the usual way over here but the influence of television chefs have altered that.
> 
> I was once served a lamb chop rare in France. Thereby hangs a tale but it was delicious!



I love my meat rare, that is how I did the lamb the first time. I really don't like anything above medium rare. I hate cooking for people who want their steak well done. I can't bring myself to do that.


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## CWS4322 (Feb 3, 2015)

I like lamb chops with dill sauce. My take on Swedish lamb with dill. I don't add cream or the egg yolk to the sauce. I make lamb stock in advance and that is where the veggies go. If the company for which I develop recipes decides not to use my take on this classic Swedish recipe, I will share it. 


As Steve said, it can be treated like beef. I pulled a package of stew meat out of the freezer on Sunday. My plan was to put it in my Norwegian Sailor's Stew. Oops! I pulled out lamb stew meat. I had a bunch of veggies I had to use up, so threw together a quick stir fry. I trimmed the fat off the meat (which is when I realized it was lamb...), marinated it in my usual stirfry marinade (soy-oyster sauce-agave syrup-grated ginger-garlic-hot mustard-green onions) for about 10 minutes. The DH doesn't like lamb. He kept telling me how good it was...it wasn't until he'd finished his 2nd helping that I told him the meat was lamb, not beef.


The only way I'll eat lamb is on the rare side of medium rare.


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## RPCookin (Feb 4, 2015)

I've always loved lamb.  My mother roasted a leg of lamb several times a year.  For whatever reason, it's hard to find in the grocery stores any more, at least to find any decent selection.  I used to really like the shoulder blade chops, and all I did was broil them, no marinades.  Like a good steak, I like the flavor unadulterated.  The arm chops with the round bone were usually too chewy to just broil them, and the regular chops were so pricey for 2 bites of meat that I had trouble justifying them.  

These days, I only have lamb when I find it on a restaurant menu.  My wife doesn't like it, and the difficulty of finding good cuts at an affordable price just makes it unattractive.  Some day though I'm going to find a good lamb haunch and roast it up - I'll eat the whole thing if I have to. 

This Moody Blues song always makes me hungry:

Lazy day, Sunday afternoon, 
Like to get your feet up watch TV,
Sunday roast is something good to eat,
Must be lamb today 'cause beef was last week.


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## Dawgluver (Feb 4, 2015)

This cracked me up, RP!  I picture you sitting there eating your lamb haunch, like a Fred Flintstone meatsickle.

I like the tiny lamb chops.  Best I've ever had was in Dominican Republic at a resort.


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## Steve Kroll (Feb 4, 2015)

RPCookin said:


> ....For whatever reason, it's hard to find in the grocery stores any more, at least to find any decent selection.


I love leg of lamb, too. We usually buy ours from a farm over in Wisconsin once a year. But the down side is that we only get one leg when we buy that way (we buy half a lamb, and the front leg is used for shoulder and foreshank cuts). I usually save that leg for Easter. The rest of the time, I buy it at Sam's Club. They sell New Zealand lamb that's 100% grass fed, and I've found the flavor to be very good.


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## Cooking4to (Feb 4, 2015)

Steve Kroll said:


> I love leg of lamb, too. We usually buy ours from a farm over in Wisconsin once a year. But the down side is that we only get one leg when we buy that way (we buy half a lamb, and the front leg is used for shoulder and foreshank cuts). I usually save that leg for Easter. The rest of the time, I buy it at Sam's Club. They sell New Zealand lamb that's 100% grass fed, and I've found the flavor to be very good.



There is a farm over in Sandy Hook that has amazing lamb, they practice raising it in low stress environments, its about the best I ever tasted or cooked with...  Peter Sepe is the farmers name if anyone is ever in the area you can buy the best meats on the coast from Avon which is an amazing place for great meats..
http://www.avonprimemeats.com/
thats who introduced me to wagyu cuts, man is that the best piece of meat you will ever taste, don't bother salt or pepper just pat it dry and cook it..


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## RPCookin (Feb 4, 2015)

Steve Kroll said:


> I love leg of lamb, too. We usually buy ours from a farm over in Wisconsin once a year. But the down side is that we only get one leg when we buy that way (we buy half a lamb, and the front leg is used for shoulder and foreshank cuts). I usually save that leg for Easter. The rest of the time, I buy it at Sam's Club. They sell New Zealand lamb that's 100% grass fed, and I've found the flavor to be very good.



I keep thinking about joining Sam's again.  We were members until 3 years ago when we moved to the Bahamas.  Because the nearest Sam's is in Denver, and we are about 2½ hours away, my wife doesn't think it's worthwhile to pay the $45 membership fee.  We used to save more than the membership fee by buying all of our paper goods, cleaning and laundry supplies there.  We also bought the bags of frozen chicken parts and other food items that were nonperishable.  I may have to join again just for stuff like this that I can't find in any of the local stores.  

We can buy good quality beef and pork on the hoof here, but no lamb that I ever heard of.


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## Cooking4to (Feb 4, 2015)

RPCookin said:


> I keep thinking about joining Sam's again.  We were members until 3 years ago when we moved to the Bahamas.  Because the nearest Sam's is in Denver, and we are about 2½ hours away, my wife doesn't think it's worthwhile to pay the $45 membership fee.  We used to save more than the membership fee by buying all of our paper goods, cleaning and laundry supplies there.  We also bought the bags of frozen chicken parts and other food items that were nonperishable.  I may have to join again just for stuff like this that I can't find in any of the local stores.
> 
> We can buy good quality beef and pork on the hoof here, but no lamb that I ever heard of.



I am ANTI walmart so if we are buying in bulk its bj's and restaurant depot...


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## Cheryl J (Feb 4, 2015)

Annageckos said:


> I love my meat rare, that is how I did the lamb the first time. I really don't like anything above medium rare. I hate cooking for people who want their steak well done. *I can't bring myself to do that.*


It used to almost hurt when I'd have to grill nice, expensive bone-in rib eyes and lamb chops well done for some family members.  I've come to realize that's how they like them, they ask for them that way and enjoy them, so that's all that matters.


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## RPCookin (Feb 4, 2015)

Cheryl J said:


> It used to almost hurt when I'd have to grill nice, expensive bone-in rib eyes and lamb chops well done for some family members.  I've come to realize that's how they like them, they ask for them that way and enjoy them, so that's all that matters.



I'll be honest, I'm like some restaurants.  I don't guarantee anything past medium rare (well actually don't guarantee anything, but I can come closer on the rare end of the scale).  

I struggled mightily on Christmas this year when I made a rib roast, and most of my wife's family wants it medium to medium well.  I took it to about 137°, let it rest, then sliced it and put the pieces from about 2" in on both ends on a different platter from the good slices so they wouldn't have to eat meat contaminated with good juices.


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## Cheryl J (Feb 4, 2015)

RPCookin said:


> I'll be honest, I'm like some restaurants. I don't guarantee anything past medium rare (well actually don't guarantee anything, but I can come closer on the rare end of the scale).
> 
> I struggled mightily on Christmas this year when I made a rib roast, and most of my wife's family wants it medium to medium well. I took it to about 137°, let it rest, then sliced it and put the pieces from about 2" in on both ends *on a different platter from the good slices so they wouldn't have to eat meat contaminated with good juices. *


 
I think we have the same family.


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## Caslon (Feb 6, 2015)

Simple lamb chop marinade I found years ago from who knows where:

1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 Tbsp Rosemary, 1/2 squeezed lemon, 1/2 clove garlic, 1/4 tsp dried Sage, 1/4 tsp salt and pepper.  Feel free to add a bit more garlic as garlic goes so well with lamb.


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## Annageckos (Feb 13, 2015)

What could I replace lemon with? I don't have any and I don't use them often. Wine? Apple cider vinegar?


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## Bookbrat (Feb 13, 2015)

I do lamb in a marinade similar to Caslon's and often use white wine. And maybe a little lemon pepper. I second lots of garlic.


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## Mad Cook (Feb 14, 2015)

Steve Kroll said:


> I love leg of lamb, too. We usually buy ours from a farm over in Wisconsin once a year. But the down side is that we only get one leg when we buy that way (we buy half a lamb, and the front leg is used for shoulder and foreshank cuts). I usually save that leg for Easter. The rest of the time, I buy it at Sam's Club. They sell New Zealand lamb that's 100% grass fed, and I've found the flavor to be very good.


Leg of lamb is very good but I think shoulder has the edge. There is a little more fat but not too much, which makes it moister and tender, and the meat seems to be "sweeter". I love it boned and rolled round apricot stuffing and roasted.


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## Annageckos (Feb 16, 2015)

I cooked the lamb steaks the other day, they came out really good. I think I liked the shoulder steaks a bit better than the leg steaks. The shoulder was just a little bit more tender but they were both good.


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## Bigjim68 (Feb 16, 2015)

Annageckos said:


> What could I replace lemon with? I don't have any and I don't use them often. Wine? Apple cider vinegar?


 
I'll probably lose my official home chef badge for this, but I keep a bottle of lemon juice around just for this reason.

Barring that anything acid would work, but the taste would be different.


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## Addie (Feb 16, 2015)

Bigjim68 said:


> I'll probably lose my official home chef badge for this, but I keep a bottle of lemon juice around just for this reason.
> 
> Barring that anything acid would work, but the taste would be different.



Nah, don't sweat it. We all keep emergency supplies on hand. I have a bottle myself that I use for the apples when I am making an apple pie. As I peel and slice the apples, they go into a bowl of ice water with a splash of bottled lemon juice. That bottle is a lot cheaper and less wasteful than a fresh lemon. I use the zest of a lemon for the pie with the seasoning. The juice of the lemon goes into the pie also. 

Most of us have a can of mushroom soup, a box or two of pudding mix, a can or two of a veggie, etc. Heck, most of us use store bought bread.


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## RPCookin (Feb 16, 2015)

I always have a bottle of lemon juice and lime juice in the fridge for those emergencies when I need some on the spur of the moment and run short of the fresh squeezed juice.


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## Annageckos (Feb 16, 2015)

I really should pick up a bottle of lemon juice. I don't dislike the taste of lemon, but I'm not real fond of it either. It is useful for apples and sun chokes though. I used wine in place of the lemon for my lamb and it was better. I love cooking with wine, hate drinking it.


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## Mad Cook (Feb 16, 2015)

Addie said:


> Nah, don't sweat it. We all keep emergency supplies on hand. I have a bottle myself that I use for the apples when I am making an apple pie. As I peel and slice the apples, they go into a bowl of ice water with a splash of bottled lemon juice. That bottle is a lot cheaper and less wasteful than a fresh lemon. I use the zest of a lemon for the pie with the seasoning. The juice of the lemon goes into the pie also.
> 
> Most of us have a can of mushroom soup, a box or two of pudding mix, a can or two of a veggie, etc. Heck, most of us use store bought bread.


Nigella Lawson says it's OK to use bottled lemon or lime juice wink so I have a bottle of lime juice for emergencies (not thatI know what constitutes a lime juice emergency  )


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## RPCookin (Feb 16, 2015)

Mad Cook said:


> Nigella Lawson says it's OK to use bottled lemon or lime juice wink so I have a bottle of lime juice for emergencies (*not thatI know what constitutes a lime juice emergency*  )



I decide at the last minute to do some nice white fish fillets en papel (I usually do it if oil, but the idea is there), and I suddenly find that I have no lemons or limes.  

My favorite way of doing this is with a nice firm fish (grouper or cod or similar - but I have done it with tilapia too), season with S&P and one of several good seafood seasoning blends (I have a couple from Savory Spice Shop that I like), add a ring of onion, a ring of bell pepper, and a slice of tomato, then drizzle lemon or lime butter over it and seal.  Bake (or roast, I don't care what you call it  ) at about 400 for 15-20 minutes.


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