Recipes…. They lost me at….

Recipes….  They lost me at…..

I decided over the weekend to cook a leg of lamb..  Two good friends of ours gave us some lamb meat..  Among them. was a leg of lamb.

My only knowledge of a leg of lamb was the fact my uncle LOVED LEG OF LAMB…  He was a cook for many years in the Navy.  But the bragged about  LEG OF LAMB…  I was in my 20’s or so.. and to that date, I had never ate lamb in any shape or form.   I knew people raised lamb… those cute little lambs…  and figured without really thinking about it.. that it is meat and the farmer must eat them… but that was the total thought of lamb.. 

Jump forward about 20 more years.. and some one gave us some lamb meat.  I was told to just cook it like any other meat.. I think it was chops or steaks..  Not sure.  All I remember was how horrible it smelt.  To the point of me questioning if it wasn’t rotten.  I would have thrown it out, if it wasn’t for a friend coming in the door as I was cooking it..  He said no it isn’t REALLY ROTTEN..  it is poorly taken care of.  He explained that who ever slaughtered the lamb, had let the wool touch the meat… which made it sour.  OH YEA.. it was sour alright.   I am pretty sure my husband and this friend came to the census that we would feed it to the dogs  I knew there was no way in hell, I was going to be able to sell this dinner to the kids..  Not after they walked by and smelt it.. making face of throwing up…. And that was my take on lamb for the next 40 years.

I had mention it to a friend of ours who raises lambs about 8 months or so ago.. and she gave me a taste…  it wasn’t’ bad.. Nowhere as bad as the one I had gotten.  

So here we are… our friend has been nice enough to gift us several types of lamb meat.   I said hamburger, but he quickly reminded me that it was LAMBURGER.. lol.    I made meat loaf out of it. After finding out how to cook lamb..  Answer was… just like beef.. but it is a little bit greasier than beef.   Ok..   Used her meat loaf recipe, as I did not want to fail.  And it came out pretty good.   Not as good as beef for me.. but it as a  taste.  It was ok..   So …I figured..  being I am trapped in the house due to lousy weather..   let’s try leg of lamb.

I googled with BEST LEG OF LAMB RECIPES.   And got about 1000 of them.  There was the British leg of lamb…  there was the party leg of lamb.. (I chose not to go there)   And one of them had a hoyty toyty chef recipe….  But he lost me with….  pomegranate molasses and Aleppo Pepper  and dried mint…… NEXT!!

Luckily, I came across one with .. olive oil rub… then sprinkle a dash of rosemary,  some mince garlic, and salt and pepper..   That is my kind of recipe..  Short order of ingredients..  And cook it much like a prime rib…  hot oven…  and let rest under a foil tent for 25 minutes.  To save the juices, it said…

AND IT WAS GOOD TASTING..  I would do leg of lamb again..  now I got to try the chops.