Where Did I Go Wrong with My Lamb?

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Richard

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I cooked lamb for Easter dinner today - an Orlando Murrin recipe from BBC Good Food. I cooked the same recipe with great success about a month ago. The only difference this time is that instead of using a cheap £10 leg of lamb from the supermarket, I used a £45 leg from an award-winning local butcher. Yet the lamb was almost inedible this time, tough as old boots. It's true that the cheap leg had the bone in, whereas today's cut had the bone removed, but I can't believe that accounts for the difference. How did I manage to go wrong with a slow-cook recipe like this?

Slow cooked leg of lamb recipe | BBC Good Food

Grateful for any insights.
 
The Velvet Curtain said:
Bone or not, cooking it for that long it should just fall apart. I'm stumped.
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We cook bone on prime rib that way. Sear at preheated 500 F for 5 minutes, then an hour per pound at 200 F, no opening door, which would be 6.5 hours for a prime rib that size. Comes out nice and tender, medium rare except the very ends, which are pretty much medium. Got the technique from a restaurateur Craig knew years ago that was known for his prime rib.

If we cook a boneless prime rib, it's a lot less time and I leave a probe in.
 
Thanks Velvet. I'm gutted, I've always rated my local butcher and although lamb is something I rarely cook I don't understand how I got it so wrong. Certainly I've cooked boneless beef hundreds of times low and slow, and it's always been melt in the mouth. I don't understand why lamb should be different.
 
It's not a dry roast - it was in a casserole with wine and stock.
 
The Velvet Curtain said:
Bone or not, cooking it for that long it should just fall apart. I'm stumped.
Click to expand...

Yes, if it was braised. Did you look at recipe, it's not cooked in a slow cooker. It's cooked in dry heat in an oven.

Dry roasted in oven for too long, you'll have slices of shoe leather that are as dry as sawdust.
 
Have a look at the recipe. It was in a sealed Le Creuset casserole dish with wine, stock and veg.
 
Even with the liquid you used, it's still too long. You cannot cook boneless meat the same amount of time as bone in and come out the same way unless the boneless piece of meat is at least 1/3 again larger than the bone in piece. That piece of bone, like our femur, is going to be very dense and have marrow so it's not going to transfer heat like fat and muscle tissue. You have to compensate and reduce time or go bigger.

The only other reason would be that your well known butcher sold you an inferior cut of meat. Have you bought from this butcher before and been happy with what you got?
 
Think of it this way. Ever seen the butcher cut cow leg bones for stock/soup making? They use a band saw. Try cutting that bone with a chef's knife. Not going to happen. You can't cut that kind of bone like you can cut the meat around it so why would it cook the same?
 
You'll forgive me for being unconvinced by your comments. I've often cooked boneless meat in a casserole low and slow and it just gets more and more tender. With ham I've found it can get too tender. With beef, it seems almost impossible to overcook in a casserole at very low temperatures. Unless there's something different about lamb, I think I've been unlucky with the joint I got from the butcher. I'll have a word with them.
 
I just had a look at the comments under the recipe and someone actually asks whether the cooking time would be any different for a boneless leg of lamb. This is the reply:

Hi, thanks for your question. It depends slightly on the weight of the joint but as this is such a low oven temperature it shouldn't harm it to keep it cooking for longer than it needs. We'd suggest checking it after 5 hours, but as long as there's liquid and the lamb is covered it should be fine to sit in the oven for a bit longer. We hope this helps. Best wishes, BBC Good Food Team.
 
Richard said:
I just had a look at the comments under the recipe and someone actually asks whether the cooking time would be any different for a boneless leg of lamb. This is the reply:

Hi, thanks for your question. It depends slightly on the weight of the joint but as this is such a low oven temperature it shouldn't harm it to keep it cooking for longer than it needs. We'd suggest checking it after 5 hours, but as long as there's liquid and the lamb is covered it should be fine to sit in the oven for a bit longer. We hope this helps. Best wishes, BBC Good Food Team.
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Yeah, I'm wondering what would happen if you cooked it even longer then. I'm not experienced with leg of lamb. I've done lamb chops cut from rack, which of course are just quickly seared and served medium rare. I don't think that comparing prime rib beef to leg of lamb is equitable since they are from different parts of the animal. If I were cooking beef shanks I would cook them for a very long time in liquid, so no way should the lamb be dry and tough if cooked that way.
 
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