Silencing of the Lambs in South/South Western Poland

User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Silencing of the Lambs in South/South Western Poland

Post by Butterbean » Fri Aug 03, 2012 15:07

Didn't know where to put this so I stuck it here. I got a phone call yesterday from a guy who is getting out of the sheep business and he asked if I'd butcher three wethers without pay if he gave me half the meat. After much deliberation and remembering the price of lamb at the grocer I agreed to do so in spite of the fact I will be unable to pay taxes on this transaction.

I can't say that I've ever eaten lamb but twice in my life. Here, the cost of lamb is very expensive so its out of my budget. But with this windfall, I'll be needing some suggestions on what to do with my half.

Here is the delivery.

Image

They were fat as can be. They had been eating clover and grass with no added feed or other things. They had piles of caul fat in them and looked to me to be in tip top shape. After butchering them I now have a better understanding of why lamb is so expensive though. Its about like cleaning a goat. Unlike a pig or a cow, there is a lot of waste. In fact, I'd estimate there is twice the waste in a lamb as there is in a pig nearly twice its size.

Anyhow, the meat looks really nice and I have them chilling as I type. Will be butchering them shortly. I think this is going to be a win/win deal if I can learn how to make something worth eating with lamb. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Image
Cabonaia
Forum Enthusiast
Forum Enthusiast
Posts: 597
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 02:07
Location: Morgan Hill, CA

Post by Cabonaia » Fri Aug 03, 2012 15:24

Well now there's a nice problem to have! You scored! Here are the first things that spring to my mind about lamb. Costco has been selling whole frozen lambs for 3.19 lb around here, and so lamb has been on my mind. Haven't made the plunge, however, because we're low on freezer space.

Sausage-wise, you could make merguez. I've never made it, but I've bought it several times and it was always good. Spicey and heavy on the cumin, if I recall. Lots of recipes out there. Good way to use the tougher cuts and some of the fat.

Leg of lamb is excellent barbecued. Lamb in general is great for bbq, because it has so much fat in it, and because it's stronger flavor holds up well against smoke.

The Greeks excell at marinating, then grilling lamb on skewers. Look for grilling recipes from them. If you want to go to the trouble, spit roasting a whole lamb is considered the pinnnacle of lambdom. Then you have a party!

My favorite part of the lamb is the hock, or shank. I braise lamb shanks pretty much the same way you would braise veal shanks or pork hocks. Now there is a hearty meal!

Rack of lamb is super expensive, and I never buy it. If you "french" the ribs you can make a very impressive looking meal. There are lots of recipes for herb crusted rack of lamb. Did that once and it was tremendous.

Good luck! Tell us what you do.

Jeff
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Fri Aug 03, 2012 16:49

Thanks for the tips. They won't go unheeded. This is a totally new world for me. :oops:
User avatar
JerBear
Passionate
Passionate
Posts: 407
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2011 05:01
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Post by JerBear » Fri Aug 03, 2012 17:07

This is a favorite gyros recipe around my house, calls for 2# of ground lamb:

AltonBrownGyros

and instead of Alton's tzatziki we use this one. And if you have a middle eastern grocery around I sub labneh for the yogurt, it's thicker and more tart:

MolyvosTzaziki
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Fri Aug 03, 2012 18:29

Gyros! Fantastic. I forgot all about these. Thanks for the link. This will be a must. My first encounter with a gyro was in Chicago while at a trade show about 30 years ago. Never had them before. Never heard of them. After tasting them I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner even though I could eat at any restaurant I wanted. Will definitely make this. Thanks. I'm getting quite psyched!
User avatar
NorCal Kid
Passionate
Passionate
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 23:43
Location: Sunny Northern California

Post by NorCal Kid » Fri Aug 03, 2012 18:37

Coming from a French-basque family background, we had lamb on a regular basis. A hearty lamb stew is to die for-perfect for those cool fall evenings. Essentially, you can take a good beef stew recipe & modify it slightly for lamb. Add some tomatoes or tomato sauce for a slight sweetness; Basque recipes add bell peppers as well with plenty of potatoes to the stew. Beans make an nice alternative to potatoes. A nice glass of red wine & crusty bread.....yum!
Image

Traditionally, Easter meant Leg o' lamb: a beautiful large leg liberally rubbed down with good olive oil, fresh rosemary and plenty of fresh garlic added in two ways: crushed & rubbed on the exterior, and thinly sliced and inserted/pushed into pockets cut into the flesh. Often this is oven-roasted on a rack (no pan) so that the drippings fall onto a pan beneath that contains rosemary potato wedges.... fantastic! Cooked just shy of medium rare...
Image

Like Jeff mentioned above, a slow-cooked lamb shank is awesome-probably my favorite lamb dish. A very hearty meal, roasted with carrots, onions, garlic, rosemary in a rich brown (or red, if you use more tomatoes)sauce that is served atop a generous plating of garlic mashed potatoes....
Image

My wife loves the roasted rack done medium rare, but for me, I'll take the shanks any day.

Dang...all this lamb talk has given me a hankerin' for some lamb.....

Kevin
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. — Hebrews 13:8
ssorllih
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 4331
Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2011 19:32
Location: maryland

Post by ssorllih » Fri Aug 03, 2012 19:00

Roast leg seasoned with rosemary, garlic, salt, Black pepper and the best olive oil Is very good. Stop roasting while there is still a possibility of resusitation.
Ross- tightwad home cook
crustyo44
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 1089
Joined: Tue Jun 14, 2011 06:21
Location: Brisbane

Post by crustyo44 » Fri Aug 03, 2012 20:10

Hi Butterbean,
There are some good recipes here and I learned lot from all the suggestions. The easiest and quickest way for lamb is to BBQ it.
In Summer I prefer the leg butterflied not thicker than 2"
with all the well known spices, please don't forget the garlic though.
Lamb in Australia is very expensive too at the moment.
Good luck,
Jan
two_MN_kids
Frequent User
Frequent User
Posts: 186
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 14:25
Location: Blaine, MN

Re: Silencing of the Lambs in South/South Western Poland

Post by two_MN_kids » Fri Aug 03, 2012 21:12

Butterbean wrote:Here, the cost of lamb is very expensive so its out of my budget. But with this windfall, I'll be needing some suggestions on what to do with my half.
What a problem to have! Good Luck with your recipes; I will be interested in what you choose to do. I love lamb, but I have never tried it for sausage.

Jim
User avatar
el Ducko
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 1340
Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2011 04:59
Location: Texas Hill Country
Contact:

Post by el Ducko » Sat Aug 04, 2012 02:23

Have a look at http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... =loukaniko for word on a great lamb sausage recipe. We've made this several times. Love it. :mrgreen:
Experience - the ability to instantly recognize a mistake when you make it again.
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Sat Aug 04, 2012 02:52

I appreciate all the tips. This is going to be a great experience here. I finished butchering them and have everything packaged and put in the freezer then the freezer defrost coil blew and burned a hole in the coil so I've spent the last hour fixing this. Thank God I was here when it happened or I'd be out a lot of stuff. All fixed but getting close to my bedtime and I had to try some of the lamb else I don't think I'd be able to sleep a wink.

Took four cutlettes and braised them in olive oil and garlic then poured some water that I had put some oregano, onion, black pepper, lemon juice and salt over them and brought to a boil then simmered for thirty minutes. Granted it was a quick cook and maybe made it a little tougher than it should be done right but the flavor was really good. Fat was good too. No strong flavors at all so no need for mint jelly. :lol:

I've laid out two legs for tomorrow. I plan on roasting one as ya'll have instructed and the other is going to be devoted along with some scraps for the gyro recipe. I just hope I can fall asleep tonight cause its going to be a busy day tomorrow. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. :lol:
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Sun Aug 05, 2012 06:28

You guys should be ashamed of yourselves giving me all these options. I couldn't make up my mind so I knew I needed some yogurt for the gyros so I made a gallon of that. While that was setting I decided to try the leg of lamb. So I tweeked a few recipes and came up with this concoction. Basically, I stuck some rosemary and cloves of garlic into the meat then made a rub out of olive oil, garlic and rosemary and thyme and rubbed the meat down hoping the olive oil would do its trick on lamb like it does on pork. On a whim, I made an oil rub using some oil and some rub I concocted a while back an marinated some potatoes an carrots. My hope is the fat from the lamb will drip all over this and make something of a side dish.

Image

I then went to work on the gyro meat as suggested by JerBear. Since I don't have a rotisserie and I was going to smoke the leg of lamb I decided to stuff the meat into a casing and see how that worked. Due to concern about it getting greasy I poked a bunch of holes in the casings hoping this would allow any excess grease to run out while it smoked at 175F.

Gyro meat ready for stuffing

Image

Stuffed

Image

As I was finishing this up I looked at all the scrap meat I had in a tub and decided I'd use this to make a Basque type stew like NorCal suggested. Since all the scrap meat was tiny and in hard to get places I just tossed all this in a pot with garlic, rosemary and salt and just cooked it down. Once it cooled I pulled the meat off the bones and out of all the little nooks and crannies and ended up with about 4 lbs of meat from the three carcasses.

I studied the Basque spice profile and looked in the garden and found some onions and assorted peppers. I threw a bunch of this together using some rendered lamb fat and sauteed onions and garlic in this fat then added the rest of the stuff from the garden along with some of the spices prevelant in Basque type stew. Instead of greek wine I use blueberry wine and reduced this.

Image

Once I thought I had the flavors right I somewhere remembered these stews were a bit on the warm side so I added a concoction I made a few weeks ago called "A woman's scorn". This defiintely negated the need to added cayene pepper in the mix. I then added the salvaged scrap meat.

Image

Then I decided to heed ElDucko's advice on the Loukaniko sausages. Of course I didn't have any oranges or orange juice. What in the world? But I followed it to the letter even soaking the casings in orange juice. Len Poli has never steered me wrong yet but I gotta say I've never heard of doing this but maybe its for the four hour hang time. Don't know.

Image

For supper I had a bowl of the lamb soup and some patties made from the meat left in the horn. So far I can say the soup is wonderful, the loukaniko is terrific and the gyro meat is fantastic.

Since there is no way we can eat all this I decided to can the stew as well as some lamb broth while I'm waiting on the leg of lamb the gyro to finish smoking. I'm about tired but I have some corn squeezings I'm fixing to infuse in my body while I wait and this should ease the pains.

Here is the modified gyros in the upright

Image

And the leg of lamb in the horizontal

Image

Oh, thank you for the inspiration. Had ya'll not layed these temptations in front of the weak soul I'd have probably wasted a day fishing or something. :lol:
ssorllih
Veteran
Veteran
Posts: 4331
Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2011 19:32
Location: maryland

Post by ssorllih » Sun Aug 05, 2012 13:34

Aw man ! all in one day. You are awesome. Very nice work.
Ross- tightwad home cook
User avatar
Butterbean
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1955
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 04:10
Location: South Georgia

Post by Butterbean » Sun Aug 05, 2012 21:59

Thanks. I was a tired puppy too but ya'll laid out so many great possibilities and being impatient and indecisive I was left with no other choice.
User avatar
JerBear
Passionate
Passionate
Posts: 407
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2011 05:01
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Post by JerBear » Sun Aug 05, 2012 23:54

You're an animal! I noticed your kitchen looks to be on the commercial side... very nice! I love the idea of smoking and you're right to poke holes in the casing. I normally do mine using the meatloaf method then press it to compress the mixture before slicing and service.

If you got 'em I'd love to see some pictures of the finished gyros!
Post Reply