Roast Leg of Lamb: A Greek Easter Dish

I've never made roast leg of lamb before. My friend Erma offered to come over and make it, so I figured why not, we'll try something new.

No one in my family is a huge fan of lamb. Gran Fran, my mom, pretty much despises the smell and taste of it. We have said in the past that it tastes like static and that we'd rather not eat it. When my friend Erma asked if I'd like to learn to cook a leg of lamb, I immediately said yes. Even though I wasn't thrilled about eating it (which I committed to as we were going to all of the trouble to make it), I was excited to learn how to make something new. With the amount of cooking that I do, it's rare occasion when I find a dish I've never made.

The leg of lamb was very simple to make. Erma went to a great butcher shop and got us a really nice leg of lamb. The recipe calls for just a few simple ingredients, but in large quantities. The flavors of the garlic, lemon and oregano really permeates the meat to give it a really fresh flavor against the very strong meatiness of the lamb.

 When it was fully roasted, I gave it a taste. I have to say, it's the first lamb I've ever eaten where I took a second bite by choice. It's still not my favorite, but I could see myself making this for a crowd sometime.

Click here to see how to cut a leg of lamb

Greek-Style Roast Leg of Lamb

Ingredients:

• 1 large leg of lamb
• 6 loves garlic
• 3 lemons, juiced
• 1 cup oregano
• 5 tablespoons salt
• 5 tablespoons fresh ground pepper

Method:

Prepare the Lamb: The day before you plan to serve it:

1. Cut slits through the fat of the lamb, each one big enough for  a clove of garlic.
2. Stuff garlic cloves into the slits, pushing garlic well into the meat.
3. Pour lemon juice over the lamb, rubbing it all over both sides of the meat.
4. Coat with oregano and salt and pepper, again making sure to cover as much of the surface area of the meat on all sides with the spices.
5. Cover and refrigerate over night.

note: if you don't have a whole night to marinade the meat, 2 to 10 hours in the fridge will work.

Cook the Lamb:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F for at least 25 minutes.
2. Cook for 30 minutes, making sure the oven rack is in the middle of the oven.
3. Reduce heat to 325 degrees F and continue roasting for about an hour.
4. Remove the meat from the oven when a meat thermometer reads 135 degrees.
5. Let rest for ten minutes and then carve (see above for a link to a carving video)

Duck Breast with Figs

My daughter loves roasted duck breast. She gave me a wonderful cookbook, Stéphane Raynaud’s 365 good reasons to sit down and eat, which has a great duck recipe in it.

I made this dish four times in a week and a half. I'd say it turned out well three of those times. The first three times I made this dish I was at my sister's house.  My sister has a meat thermometer, but I didn't, so the fourth batch was slightly over cooked. I highly recommend investing in a meat thermometer, it made all the difference.

The funniest part of me making duck not only once but four times, is that my mother, Gran Fran, had us all convinced that cooking duck was a sure way to burn your house down. I remember when we were kids, she called the fire department before she put the duck in the oven, because she was sure all that duck fat would catch fire in the oven. Of course, it didn't. Maybe I'm remembering this wrong. Even if I am, it has become a story that I love to recall, and it always makes me giggle when I plan on making duck.

This dish will be served on Thanksgiving as a turkey alternative because I'm pretty sure it'll pair perfectly well with stuffing and sweet potatoes. I figure if I keep making this, I'll be an expert at it soon, and it'll just taste that much better!

Duck Breast with Figs

Serves 6

from Stéphane Raynaud’s 365 good reasons to sit down and eat

Ingredients:

• 1 French shallot
• 1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley
• 12 green figs
• 3 duck breasts
• 5 fl oz ruby or tawny Port
• 2 tablespoons creme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur)
• 1 3/4 oz butter
• salt and pepper

Method:

1. Peel and slice the shallot, chop the parsley and halve the figs.
2. Slash the duck breasts in a criss-cross pattern.
3. Cook them skin side down in a frying pan for 7 minutes, drain the fat, turn the duck over for 2 minutes then remove to a plate.
4. Deglaze the pan with the Port and the creme de cassis, add the figs, cook for 5 minutes.
5. Add the figs, cook for 5 minutes.
6. Add the butter, then season with the salt and pepper.
7. Reheat the duck in the sauce with the figs, garnish with the shallot and chopped parsley.

Support Your Local Butcher: Drewes Brothers Meats

Local butchers are becoming fewer and farther between these days. I am lucky enough to live in a city that has several outstanding butcher shops. I have no issue with large supermarket butcher departments, nor with pre-packaged good quality meat.

What I love about going to my local butcher shop is the personal connection. They may not know me by name (though I do hear them calling many of the customers by name) but they do know what I ordered last time I came in. Asking how the chuck roast they sold me last week turned out and suggesting a nice pork shoulder for my BBQ pulled pork.

My local shop is called Drewes Brothers, walking distance from my house (though a bit further away than the Whole Foods, well worth the extra few blocks). They butcher all of their own meat and make many of the sausages they have on offer (like these bratwurst).

Here's a little back story from their website:

Josh and Isaac , are the fourth owners since Drewes Brothers originally opened in 1889. Thought to be the oldest operating butcher shop in California, Drewes offers old style service with new school attitude.

Josh and Joey are more than happy to spend a few extra minutes explaining the paticulars of a type of meat to a customer or offering cooking tips for roasting a tri-tip. All the while the radio blaring out Metallica or the days Giants game.

I remember going to the Westi Meat Market with my parents in Queens. The butchers were a bunch of German men (one or two of whom were quite handsome, which pleased Gran Fran no end) who worked very hard and had some of the best hot dogs and liverwurst I've ever tasted. They always offered the little kids a mini hot dog (fully cooked, ok to eat while you wait) and had German treats like Haribo Gummi Bears well before these became widely available in the States.

Drewes Brothers offers a small selection of sauerkraut and mustard. They also have on hand potatoes, lemons, onions, and a few other must-haves when cooking a nice roast.

So stop on into your local butcher shop and see what they have for you. They'll take good care of you.

Joe Claro, King of the Roast Beef

Joe Claro makes a mean roast beef. That's my Dad, in case you didn't recall that from some of my other posts.

His method is simple just use some salt, pepper and roast the meat until cooked to your liking.

Everyday after school one of us five kids would get dinner started. Gran Fran would call us from her office (which was an actual office with a door and a ceiling, not a cube) and give us instructions. She talked at the lowest possible whisper, so we could barely hear when she said "Put the roast beef in for 1 hour. Make sure to put lots of salt on it." Trying to decipher her instructions took some time, and it often made me feel like we were involved in some kind of espionage instead of just dinner making.

Joe, on the other hand, always wanted to make sure that we knew the proper grammatical reason whether, when the roast was finished cooking, it was done or finished. I had to ask him to go back in time and outline his preference for the use of done or finished when referring to meat. We got in all kinds of trouble when we were kids. So, here's his definition (though he finally admits that maybe he's the only one who cares).

I am finished (with what I was doing). I have completed the activity I set out to complete.

The activity is done. It has been successfully completed.

I am (or you are, or she is) done should be used only when a person is the victim of cannibals, a tanning machine, or a hairdresser. Hence, the reference to roast beef.

On the other hand, if you check reliable usage sources,  you'll find that most otherwise respectable people no longer think this time-honored distinction is valid. This is one definite sign of the decline of Western civilization as we know it.

Let that be a lesson to you, young lady.

Now onto my all time favorite Joe-ism:  where does the inflection go when talking about roast beef?

The roast beef mispronunciation is a little harder to defend, but I'm ever willing to take on the extraordinary challenge.

In normal American English speech, a two-word noun-adjective phrase will almost always be pronounced with the stress on the noun. Nouns, after all, are far more meaningful than adjectives, which serve only to describe (or modify, in traditional grammatical jargon) the really important half of the phrase.

Of course, there are phrases in which we will on purpose emphasize the adjective, such as, "I wanted the GREEN beret, not the RED one." But that kind of pronunciation is by definition out of the ordinary, which is why we would usually exaggerate the emphasis.

So, unless you're talking about ROAST beef as opposed to BRAISED beef, emphasizing the adjective is careless, improper, and in some localities morally questionable.

And let that also be a lesson to you.

I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you.

And so, goes my reminiscense of all things ROAST beef with Fran and Joe.

Roast Beef a la Joe

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 pound chuck roast
• Kosher or rock salt to coat the whole piece of meat
• Ground black pepper to coat the whole piece of meat

Method:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees
• Thoroughly dry the chuck roast.
• Roll the roast in the salt and pepper, making sure to make a nice even coating, if possible.
• Roast for fifteen minutes.
• Reduce heat to 375 degrees and roast for an additional 40 minutes.
• Remove from oven and let rest for fifteen minutes.
• Grab your handy electric knife and cut into thin slices.