SC - Cooking of meat-longish

[Philippa Alderton]

Leanna of Sparrowhaven writes:     

     > I remember the day I cooked my first lamb chops.  I bought them at a
great 
     price from our campus meat lab.  A more worldly friend of mine, who
thought 
     lamb was heavenly, told me to marinate the chops in Zesty Italian
dressing, 
     and grill.  She said to be sure not to overcook.
     
     I was proud of the fact I was trying a "new" dish.  My family,
however, 
     might not be so receptive.  So I asked my husband if he had ever tried
lamb 
     chops before?  He had..they were awful..tasted like crap...never eat
one 
     again........ OOPS!  Well, I finished grilling the lamb chops and
served 
     them with green peas and grilled squash.  You should have seen him
eat!  
     After he had eaten the first chop and was preparing to take a bite off
the 
     second chop, he looked up at me and said, "This really doesn't taste
like 
     beef or pork, but it's good.  What is it?"  I smiled and said, "Lamb 
     chops!"  Then it came out that his mother had fried the chops until
crispy 
     through and through.  No wonder.<

One of the biggest problems with most people's appreciation of lamb, and
other meats, is the perceived necessity to cook them to death. If you look
at most modern cookbooks, lamb is listed, when it is listed, as a meat
which should be cooked to medium or well done- most recipes don't even give
rare as an option. Lamb is a very delicate, tender meat, and is best when
done to medium rare.

Adamantius sez:

>Pork cooked to, what was it you said, 152 degrees F., is okay for fully
cooked. But the recipes that say you need to cook it to 180 or 190 are
just,
you should excuse the expression, hogwash...I know so many people who are
under the impression pork should have no juice, and are very suspicious of
it
when it does. They've been raised in such terror of a disease that is
virtually extinct over most of the world (and it is, admittedly, pretty
serious) that they react with revulsion when their meat is properly cooked,
not until it is plywood.<

Pork, since pigs are omnivores, is subject to trichinosis, a very nasty
muscular parasite. During the early part of this century, there was a meat
sold which was called "grainy pork," which meant that the flesh had a
granular texture. This is a manifestation of the trichinosis worm- I'd be
surprised if any of us now on the List have ever seen it, outside of a lab
or a Biology class. Sausage was a great way to hide the worm, as it could
not be seen so well in ground (granular) meat. Many of the techniques used
in the early part of this century were, quite frankly, overkill, because we
didn't understand much of what we do now. The problem with trichinosis was
not, IIRC, the worm itself, but rather the worm eggs (Bear, check me on
this) because roundworm eggs have been known to retain 60% viability after
being boiled in formaldehyde, so safety precautions of the time preferred
to err on the side of caution, regardless of palatability.

Lamb, to many of us, is a strange meat, and it also has fallen into the
caution zone, although Sheep are NOT known to be subject to trichinosis,
being complete herbivores.

One of the greatest pleasures Lord Ras and I shared at Pennsic this year,
was turning our neighbors on to lamb, properly prepared, which they had
never tried in their lives. They loved it!

Yes, folks, use caution in your usage of meats, but ameliorate your caution
with good sense, and sound cooking practices.

Phlip

Phlip at bright.net

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider that cain't be throwed.
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