Ireland loves lamb – but it doesn’t always treat it right

At one point many years ago, I was known to the Los Angeles Times test kitchen staff as the “Lamb Boy” because I had written so many recipes using it as the star ingredient.

In fairness, my diverse culinary enthusiasms had also at various times earned me the titles "Butter Boy," "Bean Boy" and "Pork Boy". But Lamb Boy was slightly different because, until relatively recently, in the United States, lamb was considered a meat apart – a mark of either exoticism or sophistication, depending on how you viewed it.

Though lamb was certainly not unheard of, the average American consumed less than one pound of it a year. It was mainly consumed by European ethnics: French, Italians and, of course, Greeks. For most others, it was an Easter duty - that is if you weren’t part of the large majority serving ham. To serve it at dinner parties was somewhat akin to going to foreign-language films, something that, sigh, I was also prone to.

All tastes are different and one man's gamey might be another's stinky

In Ireland, lamb is not regarded with this suspicion. That probably is not surprising considering that according to the most recent livestock survey, there are about as many sheep on the island as humans.

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But I have to say that I find that despite this familiarity, lamb is not always well-served here, at least to my taste. Too often, the carvery special is a leg of lamb cooked to a grey dryness that requires an ocean of gravy to resuscitate.

Cooking this long obscures the very gaminess that I like so much in lamb. Of course, that might well be the point, as all tastes are different and one man’s gamey might be another’s stinky.

Bleeding rare

For a time there was a fashion among the supposedly sophisticated to go to the opposite extreme and serve roast lamb bleeding rare. I’m not advocating for that either. For me, leg of lamb served rare is unpleasantly stringy. I find myself wanting to pick at my teeth while eating it.

But there is a happy medium that can be found at about 60 degrees internal temperature (you do use a meat thermometer when roasting, don’t you?). Lamb cooked to this temperature is pink, not red, but it is still juicy and the texture is firm, almost buttery.

This is a higher doneness temperature than you probably use for beef, and there’s a good reason for that. Most beef roasting cuts come from the long loin muscle that gets very little exercise and so is naturally quite tender (longissimus dorsi, to you anatomy fans).

A roast leg is one of my favourite dinner party dishes. My usual preparation is one I learned in Italy many years ago. It's a bit fussy

The muscles in a lamb’s leg get a lot more work and build up quite a bit of tendon and tough connective tissue. These need to be cooked to a higher temperature, but then they will soften and melt and will actually moisten the meat and make it seem more tender. Lamb chops can be served rarer since they come from the loin.

A roast leg is one of my favourite dinner party dishes. My usual preparation is one I learned in Italy many years ago. It's a bit fussy. Use a paring knife to pierce the leg, creating little pockets roughly two to three centimetres apart. Stuff these pockets with a mixture of bits of anchovy, thin slices of garlic and sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Start the roasting at a relatively low temperature (about 160 degrees) to ensure an even doneness, then crank the oven up to 220 or so for the last 20-30 minutes to get a nice brown crust. The anchovies, garlic and most of the rosemary will melt into the meat.

My family dinner version of this is almost as good and a lot easier – puree the anchovies, garlic and rosemary in a blender, then pour it over the lamb leg in a plastic bag. Let it sit for a few hours or overnight before roasting.

True spring lamb

One of the best surprises I found on moving to Ireland has been the seasonal availability of true spring lamb, starting right around Easter and lasting for roughly the next three months.

While most meat that we buy today is of a fairly uniform age and consistency, spring lamb offers a throwback to an era when seasons mattered and you could taste the difference in meat from month to month.

My experience with true spring lamb is largely limited to my past year cooking in Ireland

Generally speaking, spring lamb is very tender with a fairly mild flavour. This is one roast I wouldn’t be afraid to serve rarer than usual. As the season progresses and the animal matures, the flavour becomes more pronounced.

Take that with a grain of salt, though. My experience with true spring lamb is largely limited to my past year cooking in Ireland. In the US, though the term “spring lamb” is thrown around quite a bit, it is more marketing than reality. True spring lamb is so scarce you practically have to know a farmer to get it.

In fact, I can think of only two times I had the opportunity to cook with it. The first time was probably 25 years ago when a chef I worked with had special-ordered it; the next time was about 10 years ago at the home of a friend who was besties with a sheep’s milk cheesemaker who managed her own flock. I still remember those loin chops, around as big as a silver dollar.

Now all I have to do is walk down John’s Hill to my favourite butcher. This spring is going to be exciting. Lamb Boy rides again!