I've put off cooking this because I've never tried lamb before. I'm only learning about steak cuts in the last 3 years, I don't remember eating much "steak", but ate burger, roasts, fish. Does anyone have a really simple recipe to cook lamb, and I don't mind hearing how you might compare it to beef? I may not make it to the grocery store today so I can buy more beef and fish, so I'd like to see what others think about lamb, the type in my post-title?
I just posted a recipe for you here, Denise. There's also a 5 page Does Anyone Else Like Lamb thread here if you care to see who is for it and who is agin it.
@Denise Evans my DH likes the shoulder chops but I find them way to chewy ,I like short loin chops If I’ve got some shoulder chops in freezer in winter I’ll make a oven cooked casserole ( can be made in slow cooker as well but will be bland if you don’t brown chops and onions first ) When I make it in oven I put chops in dish add chopped onion and can of diced tomato add a teaspoon of sugar, and a little salt and pepper, cook till well done. Greek people are known to squeeze lemon juice over lamb while cooking DH has just had a birthday 77 th ….and he wanted a little BBQ with just him and me so I got his favourite shoulder chops and had a bbq…our actual, bbq ….with my short loin chops ….and his SC
Whatever I got was awful, way too "chewy", tough as hell, and I did not like the taste. Doubt I'll try any sort of lamb again and just stick with what I know Thank you for the info though Kate, you never know when I might "need" to try some sort of lamb cut again
I've had lamb chops before, been it's been a number of years ago. I cooked them in an electric skillet and they came out pretty good. How did you cook yours? Just to let you know, we bought an Iron Skillet to partially cook ("sear") a Fillet Mignon in. After "searing" it, we put both the steak and Iron Skillet into oven (not broiler). We were both very surprised at how it came out. IOW, absolutely delicious! I had always just cooked a steak in the broiler or outdoor grill, but not any more.
I agree, Denise. I think lamb is nasty tasting and smells weird. I'm the same way about venison; I just can't stand it.
We had Buffalo once, from a small Buffalo Ranch in Colorado. Once was enough! I've never had venison, but my wife has and she just told me "it was tough meat". I will sometimes buy Elk/Beef mixture of Elk Meat Sticks, but not very often.
My dad used to get a deer almost every year when I was a kid, so we had venison, and the way my mom prepared it, it was delicious, juicy, and very tender. She always cooked the liver when it was fresh, and usually the heart, too. She would cut the meat into strips (like what we call chicken fingers), coat it with flour, and chicken-fry it just until it was done, but not tough. Occasionally, my dad would shoot an elk, and that meat tasted more like beef to me. I liked it fine, too. My mom bought a whole sheep one time, and had it professionally cut up. It was strong tasting and lots of grease, but edible with enough ketchup. I had bear once, too. Someone we rented from had shot a bear and gave us a roast to try. It tasted a lot like pork roast to me. When we had the cafe in Idaho, Bobby ordered alligator and we served that. Not my favorite, but similar to chicken, I guess.
I am told that much of what is sold as lamb in the U.S. would be considered mutton in much of the world. I don't know that for a fact though. Mutton is terrible to me, but those who have developed a taste for it love it above all meats. I have eaten many types of meat, but not sure about elk. As my wife often says, the best meat she has ever had and the worst meat she has ever eaten were both bear meat. We were given both bear meats. One was so awful that we couldn't even eat it as sausage. The other was shot as defense of life and property in the early spring and was absolutely delicious. Venison and many other game meats taste different depending on what they have eaten. I had alligator once and it was horrible! It was so tough I could hardly chew it, and it was served in a fancy restaurant in Miami shortly after gator became legal, so it may have been a really old animal, but it removed my desire to ever eat it again. I had swordfish in another fancy place in New York City that was famous for it. It reminded me of shark, which I also don't like much. We raised sheep and goats, and both kid and lamb were fine when butchered very young. I found kid to be the better of the two.
Yes they are generally known as stewing chops in Australia @Denise Evans if you make a casserole like I mentioned they melt in your mouth however you have to cook for at least 1 and a half to 2 hours to get they melt in the mouth dish, we have mashed potatoes and green veg with ours and can 2 meals each from 3 chops cause it makes delicious gravy ( which I thicken a little with gravox )
It would be bland as . @Hedi Mitchell ,if you cooked in crockpot unless you brown meat and onion I do the same when cooking a beef stew or casserole always brown meat and onions and I always partly cook carrots celery and onions to add to stew it brings out the flavour and you don’t have to add anything other than the meat and veggies , water and a little thickening ( I add potatoes and swede half way through cooking a stew ) It’s sorta funny when I met my DH in 1986 ( 2 nd marriage for us both ) he asked me after I moved in with him if I could make a stew ….and he said he’d followed every recipe he could find and ended up binning the food cause it was so bland ….he was cooking it by throwing all the ingredients in a crock pot that’s it …
Exactly. -The stuff from the mountains that eat roots & acorns taste gamey. -The stuff from agricultural regions that eat corn crops are grain-fed & delicious. I've had lamb chops a few times and like it. I don't know how "chops" and "shoulder chops" may differ. The times I've purchased lamb chops and veal, they have come in a manufacturer's prepacked branded container like this: The plastic wrap is always swollen, as though the meat is out-gassing, and it stinks when you puncture the plastic. But it's always been within its expiry date, and it's always tasted fine. I've never had lamb from the in-house butcher process, if it's even offered around here.
Prior to meeting my DH in 1986 I was a single mum for 14 years and lived on one of the largest sheep / cereal growing farms in SA 20.000 acres I was only a worker I didn’t own the farm ,and occasionally I’d accompany the farmer to a weekly sheep / livestock auction in the town which was 18 miles away I was horrified to see the condition of some of the sheep the local butchers bought which was allot of old ewes past their lamb producing days, but still made good small goods like sausages / mince or various other small goods . Lamb sold in supermarkets has to be branded as ‘ lamb” and you have to find a specialist butcher to be able to get mutton or hogget now days @Don Alaska