sliced
March 4th, 2011
Breast of Lamb is one of those cuts of meat which has been neglected of late, in fact I believe it is generally used in the process of making Doner Kebabs and therefore, it almost never gets to the butchers shop. It’s actually quite a cheap cut of meat, so if you are lucky enough to have a good butcher, you should get a bargain. Having said that, breast of lamb is a fatty piece of meat and requires some special attention. Ask you butcher to bone the breast for you and then cook it slowly, stuffed, for a couple of hours – that way it comes out crispy and tender, with lots of flavour.
Stuffing recipe for a 2 lb breast:
1/2 lb good sausage meat or the sausage meat from 3 or 4 large sausages
1 medium onion
6 pieces of garlic
a cup of breadcrumbs (or a couple of slices of stale bread)
a few sprigs of rosemary, sage and thyme
sea salt and cracked black pepper
The easiest way of mixing your stuffing, is to put it all into a food processor, ideally the onions, garlic and herbs first. Roll out your lamb breast, sprinkle on a little salt and pepper and then spread out the stuffing on top. Roll the lamb up and tie it tightly as per my picture. After doing mine, I did come across a recipe which included a few anchovies in the stuffing – in moderation, they add to the savoury flavour, you won’t notice the taste of fish at all – I’ll be using some the next time I do it.
stuffed breast
The stuffing does have a tendency to ooze out while cooking, so it’s worth covering both ends of the lamb breast in some foil. Do not cover the whole breast, you want it to brown and go crispy during cooking. Put the lamb breast into a preheated oven at 200º C, turn the oven down to 180º C after the first 20 minutes and cook for about 2 hours in total. Baste at 20 minute intervals. Cooking the lamb slowly allows the outside to go crisp, while the inside gets nice and tender.
When done, slice the breast and serve with roast potatoes, home made gravy and seasonal vegetables.
Another excellent way of preparing breast of lamb is, Breast of Lamb St. Ménéhould, popularised by Elizabeth David.
Lamb of Maddog you take away the hunger of the world … invites us round for dinner
Lamb of Maddog you make the mouths of the world salivate … have gravy on us
I cooked Breast of Lamb as they were going for a song at my local Farmers Market last Sunday. When I cook Breast of Lamb, I take a sharp knife, make about 6/8 incisions / 1″ deep into the meat and insert a piece of garlic, half an achovie and a small sprig of rosemary into each little pocket. Sprinkle liberally with freshly ground pepper & sea salt. Roast as you would normally for Breast of Lamb or reduce timing if you like your meat on the pink side (I do!). It’s an adaptation from Simon Hopkinson’s “Roast Leg of Lamb with Anchovy, Garlic and Rosemary” from his roast chicken and other stories – one of my favourite cookbooks of all time. Delicious…..