Crockpot Greek-Style Lamb

I've had this crockpot recipe earmarked for a while, but a big leg of lamb is hard to find nearby, and expensive...  Poor ol' Key Foods is having meat fridge issues, though, so I made a Whole Foods run.  Nothing wrong with their meat section, except still expensive I guess...

Recipe
Lamb
4-6 lb leg of lamb
zest & juice of 1 lemon
8 garlic cloves, peeled
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp dried oregano
salt & pepper

Rub the lamb with salt & pepper, then olive oil, then oregano.  Put it in your crockpot and sprinkle over the lemon and garlic cloves.  Cover and cook for 4-5 hours (add at least an hour if it's a bone-in roast).  Shred the lamb by hand/forks on a cutting board.  Pour the juices into a saucepan and reduce by half.  Mix back in with the lamb.

Pitas
1-2 c Greek yogurt
zest & juice of 1 lemon
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
spinach, olives, bell pepper, feta, etc.
pitas (original recipe says tortillas, but seriously?)

Stir together the yogurt, lemon, onion and garlic.  Chop the veggies.  Stuff in pitas with meat.

Notes

I was worried that the crockpot wouldn't get the best out of a fine piece of meat like a leg of lamb.  It was tough to leave it sitting out all day while I was at work...  Maybe another time I'll stick around and roast it, but no regrets this time.  I was also on the fence about part two of the recipe.  That yogurt sauce is great, though, and it's a good produce accompaniment.  So it was one of my more expensive dishes, definitely, but so far I've gotten a handful of good meals out of it.

Shepherd's Pie

I mostly think of shepherd's pie as pub food, but apparently it was a(nother) occasional family dish as well.  In any case, I figured a hearty combo of lamb, potatoes, and some veggies was worth a try.  Courtesy of my Best Meat Recipes cookbook:

The Recipe

Filling
3+ lbs lamb shoulder chops, cut away from bone and into 1 in pieces
2 medium onions, chopped
2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4 in slices
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 1/4 c chicken broth
1/4 c red wine
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp thyme, chopped
1 tsp rosemary, chopped
1 c frozen peas, thawed

Topping
2+ lbs russet potatoes, cut into 1-2 in cubes
6 tbsp butter
3/4 c milk
2 egg yolks

salt & pepper

Sprinkle the lamb with salt and pepper.  Heat 2 tbsp oil over medium-high and brown the lamb (probably in 2 batches, extra 1 tbsp oil per batch).  Remove lamb to a bowl.

Reduce heat to medium and cook the onion and carrot until (onions are) soft.  Add the garlic, flour, and tomato paste.  A minute later, broth, wine, and Worcestershire, then the thyme and rosemary.  Cover and simmer until the lamb is tender, 25-30 minutes.  Then stir in the peas.

Meanwhile, get the topping going - cover the potatoes in water, sprinkle salt, and bring to a boil.  Once potatoes are tender (15-20 minutes), drain and return the pot to low heat.  Mash in the butter, milk, and egg yolks.  Season with salt and pepper.

Now you combine everything in a large baking dish or (a couple) pie plates.  Pour in the lamb mixture.  Drop gloops of potatoes around the edges, sealing in the filling.  Bake at 400 degrees until the top is golden brown, about 20-30 minutes.

Notes

This dish went over well.  It was a good bit of work, but fed a decently-sized group, several of whom helped prepare.  We went heavy on the herbs (although maybe not on salt & pepper), and also used Chipotle Tabasco sauce instead of Worcestershire in the spirit of using what was on hand.  I personally was not sure it was much better than the sum of its parts.  I would do it again, though; not sure it's worth the effort in smaller, more personal quantities.

Westerosi Honey-Clove Lamb - Updated

The North remembers.  It was not so long ago that Ned Stark ruled in Winterfell, free of those meddlesome southern lords and their Iron Throne.  Such feasts we had!  Who knows when we'll next know the taste of mutton in this long winter?

The imagination of George RR Martin as interpreted by The Inn at the Crossroads blog is not always on point...  No complaints at all about this one, though.  It's such a simple recipe - almost no prep of the ingredients - but such rich flavor between the lamb and sauce.  That said, it does almost seem like something's missing.  After a couple tries, I think sauteed mushrooms and onions do the trick.

The Recipe

lamb chops or steaks
mushrooms, chopped
1 onion, copped
1 cup cider
2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp honey
butter/olive oil, salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 400.  Sprinkle your lamb with salt and pepper, and sear (over pretty high heat) in a dry skillet.  Then move to a buttered/oiled baking dish and cook for about 10-15 minutes.  Meanwhile, sautee the mushroom and onion in the skillet until softening, then put everything else in and simmer.  You want it to reduce down pretty well into a nice gravy.  Combine, give thanks to the Old Gods and eat.

Notes

And that's it!  A few points.  What are cloves?  I don't know but they are delicious.  The original recipe calls for mead.  I have no idea where to get that and was at a loss, until it came to me right there in Morton Williams - cider.  Even if it doesn't work out, you have five and a half ciders to comfort yourself with.  And if (when) it goes amazingly well, you still have those ciders!  The only suitable cuts of lamb they had were shoulder steaks, a bit tough but not expensive, and they still have that great lamb scent, and then taste.  Once the lamb's in the oven and the sauce on the stove, you have some good time to work on sides.

Here's the finished product as per Inn at the Crossroads with a tasty fancy-boy sauteed spinach.  As you can see, ideally the sauce would be thicker and sit on top of the lamb (instead of sloppily pool in the plate), but it tasted great.

And here's a subsequent iteration with the full gravy.  Much less wet, especially over mashed potatoes:

Lamb Shoulder

I think my cooking has come a long way, but I'm still not ready to trust myself with a really fine, expensive piece of meat.  When it comes to lamb, so far I've stuck to ground or, for this post, shoulder.  That link is more walkthrough than specific formula, but here's what I've done:

The Recipe

lamb shoulder chops
onion, chopped
baby carrots, chopped
mushrooms, chopped
a few cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup red wine
1 can crushed tomatoes

Season your chops with salt and pepper, and brown over high in a skillet.  Set aside; lower heat, then cook up your vegetables in the same skillet.  Once they're cooked and soft, add the red wine.  Reduce a bit, then add the tomatoes and plop the lamb (and juices) back in.  Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the meat is tender.  Once the meat is done, set aside again and reduce the sauce down.

Notes

This recipe does involve some serious chopping (onion, carrot and garlic; think we've added some mushrooms too) and takes a while to stew (I used red wine; not sure why you'd use white with lamb and tomatoes).  But it seems pretty hard to mess up, and done anywhere close to right both the chops and the sauce come out so rich at the end.  Like the walkthrough explains, it's good on its own or over pasta.

Not my best photographic work, but I swear the taste was all there!  Doesn't the sauce at least look awesome:

Lamb Meatballs

Recipe

Thanks Natalie for the Best Meat Recipes cookbook a few Christmases back!  Unfortunately, most of the recipes involve equipment beyond what my humble NYC kitchen supports (e.g., grilling) or premium cuts of meat you just can't get at Morton Williams.  This one took two tries on the latter point, but was well worth the effort.

1 lb ground lamb
1 tsp cumin
1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 cup + 3 tbsp yogurt
1 slice of bread, crumbled
1 clove garlic, minced
oil
fixin's (pita, pasta, rice, greens, etc.)

Combine the lamb, cumin, cayenne, 2 tbsp cilatro, 3 tbsp yogurt and bread crumbs in a large bowl - get in there up to your elbows to mix it up.  Then gently roll into meatballs of about an inch.  Freeze for a few minutes.  Heat oil in a pan (medium-high), in go the balls.  Brown about two minutes, flip, lower heat (medium), cook another six minutes; couldn't help rolling them around a little to make sure they cook through.  Combine the yogurt, garlic, remaining cilatro and a bit of cayenne and salt as a sauce.

Outcome

Technically I did this recipe with about .88 lb of meat and didn't hold back too much on the cayenne, so it came out very flavorful.  I ended up with about a dozen meatballs, enough for two with some pasta and spinach to go with.  Most were cooked about right - little to no pink, with a nice brown crust.  Fun and not too difficult to put together!