Lamb on Hay: Field Report

nbak4bbq

Am I right in thinking that lamb is not such an important meat in the US?

Over the pond (and in Auz and Middle Earth) it's so integral to our diets, I'm wondering if it's something geographical about the US that it's not such a popular meat. Please explain. Sunday roast lamb is an institution in the UK. Not surprisingly, there's many a way to cook it and I was wondering if this seriously old recipe might interest Eggers everywhere. Lamb cooked/baked on/in hay. There are many versions to be found out there but not one using the Egg, so here goes.

Firstly, let's clear up a few variations. Many cooks say that the lamb ought be protected from the hay (that's right: cut and dried meadow, when it's best) with a cheese cloth wrap. I don't think Eggers need bother with that. We like our meat(s) in contact with the cooking elements: smoke and occasional flame. So you get a bit of straw on your plate? Brush it off and enjoy reality.

Preparation:

1) Get good lamb. I mean head down to your quality butchers and get the best lamb you can find. At the moment, I'm particularly loving salt marsh reared lamb from Wales, South-Eastern England and Northern France. Fantastic! Because the coastal saltiness gets into the meat.

2) Getting hold of quality fresh hay can be a problem if you're in central London or any other metropolis. The answer is to head for you local pet shop. They will have bags of hay supplied for all those cute lil' pets: hamsters, bunnies etc. This should be good enough for the recipe as long as it's dry and aromatic. You know: summer days and fresh cut grass.

3) This recipe will work with either leg or shoulder but it needs to be a joint. My example uses a leg which I cut deep gashes into with a sharp knife.

4) Bash up lots of aromatic herbs: garlic, rosemary (of course) bay, thyme and sage. Add some Dijon mustard and olive oil to make a nice herby paste. Rub that into the cuts and gashes all over.

5) Line a V-Rack with foil and layer on the hay. (See first pic.)

6) Lay your lamb down. (See second pic.)

7) Set the egg low as you can with a plate setter (like around 100) so that the hay never reaches ignition point.

8) Give it whatever the time it needs to get there. In this case around three hours. Note lamb should not be over cooked as it dries and looses flavour. End results should look like final photo.

9) Brush of the hay and serve. What you have is a deliciously succulent leg of lamb with a distinctively, well, "hayee" flavour and aroma.

Legume

Very cool idea. We love lamb, but you're right, not as popular here at all, although there are regional differences - when we lived in California it was much more popular and available, here in Texas it was hard to find 10-15 years ago but gaining visibility now, especially with smaller, local ranchers that sell at farmers markets and the like.

The best lamb I have ever had was a shoulder slow roasted in port in a pub down in rural Kent. Absolutely fantastic, I wish I could recreate it.

I'll have to try this.

gdenby

There is more lamb available now than when I was a child. Then leg of lamb might appear around Easter, or lamb chops for very special occasions. It is somewhat more common now, tho' expensive. The quality varies. Much of what appears in the markets has been shipped in from Australia. I suppose freshness plays a part in the quality, and too often the meat is just mushy.

There are a few local producers where I live, but they don't raise many. The price is really high, altho' the flavor and texture is clearly superior to the mass produced packages at the markets.

I understand that for a time a lot of the lamb appearing at the markets were there as the by-products of producing an enzyme or some such for Marijuana testing. The flavor was very pale compared to what I've since had from animals specifically bred for meat.

bclarksicle

Mmmm. Lamb. Getting to where I find it even better than beef

nbak4bbq

I wonder if it's in some way connected with cotton production? For centuries, England and Wales depended upon sheep farming to produce wool. It was our main export for before industrialisation. Not for nothing is there a sack of wool under the Speaker's chair in the houses of Parliament. Back then, it would have been madness to slaughter a fully-grown sheep for its meat. When they got too old to yield more wool they would be slaughtered for mutton. Oddly, mutton is almost impossible to find now because of our taste for lamb. With the coming of cotton, the big wool markets must have died off. Cotton was the USA's big export so perhaps you never developed a sheep-rearing tradition.

Just a thought. The Egg is the perfect lamb roasting device, too. That said, I don't think lamb does well to be too smokey. When I'm doing a ordinary roast, I wrap it in foil for the first hour to keep to smoke from penetrating and then let the dome heat do its wonder work after that.