Lamb has always been considered an exquisite classic of the East. Over the past decades, it has thoroughly strengthened its culinary popularity in the West. Today lamb can be easily bought at any butcher's shop. Despite the availability, lamb is still unconventional Russian food, and its preparation every time becomes a real culinary event. Today we’ll try to join and learn the wonderful world of oriental cuisine.
Leg of lamb
It is in this part of the carcass that there is the least amount of fat, which makes the leg of a lamb not only a delicious treat, but also useful. Of course, no one will cook lamb every day. This is a great dish for a festive table: outwardly it looks very impressive, has a wonderful spicy aroma and tastes just magical.
It seems to many beginning housewives that the preparation of this dish is extremely difficult. In fact, knowing a few culinary tricks and oriental subtleties, even a beginner will master the basics and basic stages of cooking mutton.
Secrets and recommendations for choosing meat
Before cooking the lamb leg, be sure to rinse with hot water. She will help to remove all pollution. It is also recommended to cut off the maximum amount of fat. Do not completely remove fat! A small fat layer will protect the meat from drying out during baking in the oven. It is important that the fat layer is not only thin, but also uniform.
In order to get tender lamb meat on your table without a characteristic unpleasant odor, you should look for a fresh carcass in a butcher shop. It is milk lamb that has light and elastic meat without a pungent odor and unpleasant yellow fat. It is important that the muscle fibers are light red in color. If the meat is brown or red, then it is old.
To get juicy meat, you need to bake a lamb leg in foil or sleeve. It is not recommended to make incisions and stuff the meat with garlic, vegetables or something else. Whole baking will save all the juices.
Features of the preparation of lamb
Lamb is universal meat, it can be baked with aromatic herbs as well as vegetables or herbs.
The cooking time of a lamb leg baked in a sleeve or foil will vary depending on the weight of the meat piece. As a rule, it is recommended to keep 1 kg of lamb in the oven for at least 40 minutes. And 20 minutes is always added - for the total weight.
Meat readiness can be checked using a special cooking thermometer or a conventional wooden toothpick. The thermometer should show 57 ° C for medium roasting, 68 - for well-done roasting. The readiness of the meat piece can also be shown by a light pink transparent juice flowing from the puncture site with a toothpick.
It is not recommended to cut the lamb leg baked in foil immediately after it has been removed from the oven. So that the meat juices inside the piece are distributed evenly, and the meat has become perfectly tender and very tasty, you should leave it alone for 10 minutes. A longer simple and untimely serving of lamb to the table can threaten a frozen layer of fat on the meat slices, which is absolutely not appetizing.
Pickling
Not a single recipe for a lamb leg in the oven is complete without a description of the pickling process. Marinade is a very important part of the culinary process. Experienced oriental housewives do not recommend neglecting them.
It is the correctly prepared marinade that allows the lamb leg, like any other type of meat, to reveal its rich taste and unique aroma. From a huge variety of seasonings and spices, we recommend choosing: mustard, rosemary, oregano, thyme, red paprika, lemon juice and ginger root. The herbs you will use when rubbing your feet can be both dry and fresh.
In many eastern countries, basil, sesame, sage, pine nuts, cinnamon and mint are often put in dishes prepared from mutton. In addition, if you ask knowledgeable oriental culinary specialists how to cook a lamb leg, then the majority will name another Central Asian seasoning - zira. This type of spices is very popular, it is used in the preparation of a large number of dishes with and without meat.
Marinade options
What are the mutton marinades?
- Vegetable oil, parsley, bay leaf, lemon juice. Mix, add chopped onion. Pour 180 ml of white wine, mix and marinate the meat during the day.
- For 5 hours, the lamb leg can be marinated in a mixture of olive oil, parsley, cilantro, rosemary. In the resulting aromatic mass, onions scrolled in a meat grinder are added.
- Lemon juice, chopped garlic, soy sauce, mint.
- Mix two onions with bay leaf, parsley, cloves, lemon juice and salt. Add one teaspoon of sugar and 460 ml of water. Boil the brine, cool and pour lamb over it. Pickling time - 6 hours.
- Two cloves of garlic mixed with 220 g of fat yogurt. Add two teaspoons of red paprika, hot pepper and peppermint. Coat the leg with the mixture, leave for 10 hours.
Leg of a young lamb with rosemary and garlic
We offer you to cook a simple but very effective dish. The recipe for baked lamb leg with rosemary and garlic will be a real decoration of the festive table. Juicy meat flesh, incredible aroma of herbs, ruddy appetizing crust - a dish that will not leave indifferent households and guests.
List of ingredients
For cooking you will need:
- ram leg;
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- two branches of fresh rosemary;
- sweet paprika - a teaspoon;
- hot or black pepper;
- salt to taste.
Cooking method
Considering the tips and recommendations described above, we remove excess films, veins, and fat from the lamb leg. Mix spices and aromatic herbs prepared for pickling in a small bowl. We recommend taking ground pepper, cilantro seeds, rosemary, sweet paprika for this recipe. Add a pinch of salt and rub the lamb leg with these products. Leave the meat to marinate for 2 hours. If there is time and opportunity, then leave your foot for a day in the refrigerator.
Put the marinated meat on the foil, wrap it as tight as possible. This will save all the juice. The oven by this time has already been heated to 130 ° C. We put the meat on a baking sheet and bake for 1.5 hours. After 90 minutes, increase the temperature to 190 ° C. Leave the meat to bake for another hour.
Leg of a young lamb with quince baked in a sleeve
This dish is worthy of a royal table. The lamb leg recipe with quince and fragrant rosemary is a real find for the hostess. If you pick the right marinade, lamb is incredibly tender, and quince makes the meat also incredibly fragrant.
List of ingredients
You will need:
- 2 kg of lamb meat;
- half a tablespoon of salt (you can use a ready-made mixture of salt with spices);
- one head of garlic;
- half a small lemon;
- dry rosemary - 1.5 tbsp. spoons;
- vegetable oil -3 tbsp. spoons;
- butter - 40 grams;
- quince - 2 pieces.
Cooking method
As in the first recipe, we start cooking by removing the films and fat. Mumps and lint may remain on the surface of the film. They will interfere with the pickling and the baking process. If you were not able to find the meat of a young lamb, then we remove the excess fat (only a uniform layer of fat, the width of which reaches 3-5 mm).
For pickling we take the simplest and most affordable spices: rosemary, salt, black pepper. Seasonings can be crushed using a blender or grind in a mortar. Add chopped garlic and a spoonful of sunflower oil to the spices. We rub the lamb leg with the mixture. Leave to marinate for 4 hours. If you managed to get young meat, then the pickling time is reduced to 1 hour.
After marinating, we cover the meat with garlic slices and butter cubes. We place the lamb leg (the photo will help beginners to determine the size of the sleeve and the method of fixing the corners) in the baking sleeve. We make a few small holes with a knife so that the sleeve does not swell and does not tear. The oven is heated to a temperature of 170 ° C. The leg languishes for 2 hours. You can understand that the meat is ready using the methods described above (thermometer, toothpick). Also, meat will tell you about readiness, which will be easily separated from the bone.
After 2 hours, we remove the sleeve from the oven and carefully untie one corner. Spoon the meat piece with the allocated fat. This will make the meat juicier. At the same time, we put quince cut into small segments into the sleeve. Tie the corner again. Put your foot in the oven for another 25 minutes. To get a delicious golden crust, cut the sleeve in the center and leave the meat for another 3-5 minutes in the "Grill" or "Top heat" mode.
By the way, in the sleeve along with the lamb leg you can put whole potatoes or slices of sweet carrots. Previously, vegetables are recommended to be coated with the same spice mixture that was used for marinating meat. You can bake a lamb leg and simply on a baking sheet. But in a sleeve or foil, the process will go much faster in time.
In conclusion, useful information for those who adhere to a proper diet or diet. The calorie content of a 100 gram piece of lamb leg, which was baked in the oven, is 192 calories. The dish can be considered dietary, if you add vegetables as a side dish.