Where Did I Go Wrong with My Lamb?

[medtran49]

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.

Well then we are going to have to agree to disagree. I've found that when I cook pot roast that if I let it cook too long because I didn't set a timer and forget to check on it that the pot roast is dry and tough. If cooked the proper amount of time, then it's moist and tender. Just because you are cooking meat in liquid doesn't mean liquid is staying in the meat.

Ever boiled or poached chicken in water? Ever cooked beef knuckles to make a stock? Just where do you think the flavoring of the end product comes from? Ding, ding, ding, the meat and bones! Ever tasted chicken wings or legs, or pieces of beef off the bones that were used to make stock? Dry and tasteless. Hmm, see a correlation?

You CANNOT continue to cook meat past the proper amount of time/temp in an oven or on the stovetop without the meat cooking too much and drying out regardless of how you are cooking it, in oven or stovetop or on the grill. Med rare lamb should be removed at internal temp of 135 F/57 C, yet your recipe is cooking at 210 F/100 C. Even well cooked lamb should be removed at 160 F/71 C. The longer you cook your lamb or any animal protein, the more the internal temp goes up and the tighter the muscle fibers get, forcing juices out. That's just proven science.

The ONLY time you can cook meat for extended periods to increase tenderness/break down connective proteins is in a sous vide set at the proper finished temperature for the meat, say 125 F for med rare steak. The meat will NEVER increase past 125 F in a sous vide set at 125 F. In an oven or on the stove top the meat will continue to increase in temperature since even a low simmer will be at least 212 F, drying out and getting tougher.

Oh, re the comments, "check at 5 hours", and "fine to sit in the oven for a bit longer." Two more hours, if you followed the recipe as you have indicated you did, is NOT a bit. The "check at 5 hours" comment just proves my point, you have to adapt time if cooking boneless versus bone in.

Rather you believe it or not, I am 99% sure you overcooked your meat, and, as mentioned earlier, we are going to have to agree to disagree.

 

[JAS_OH1]

I think I've been very lucky. The only time I've ever made tough dry meat was probably 40 years ago when I first was living on my own and I undercooked a pot roast.

 

[JAS_OH1]

Here's an interesing article:

Science of Slow Cooking

 

[rascal]

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.

My 2 cents worth. From the home of lamb. New Zealand .
I cook lamb all the time in fact I jsvr a leg in the oven at the moment. Full leg boned out roasting with the bone I removed for soup.

 

[rascal]

So bone in or not I cook for 3 1/2 to 4 hrs at 150 c .
Rubbed with garlic and rosemary from our garden.
It is always melt in the mouth go to food. Everyone in my family would say it's their favourite protein, myself included.
Dont blame your butcher.
The only other thing would be if the meat was bashed or something prior to killing. When I did home kill many years ago , the animals were penned for a few days to relax them, prior to slitting their throats. I dont know if I was facing mecca??

Russ

 

[rascal]

My 2 cents worth. From the home of lamb. New Zealand .
I cook lamb all the time in fact I jsvr a leg in the oven at the moment. Full leg boned out roasting with the bone I removed for soup.

View attachment 99716

You can see the bone top left. The leg is bound with string. For ease of carving.
Whenever I start electric knife our daughter starts hovering for fatty scraps.
Good luck

Russ