SC - GLAZED LEG OF LAMB

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Pink Sunshine wrote:
> 
> Thank you Brokk and Puck for the wonderful lamb recipe. I was wondering if
> the saffron could be exchanged for something else or omitted since it is so
> expensive. Also, would 150 degrees be rare, medium, or what?

Re saffron. Yes, it's kind of expensive, but the most glaring cases are
where people are buying it in such a way that for practical purposes
it's expensive because people choose for it to be that way. It's fairly
reasonably priced if you buy it in the right places; the Pepperer's
Guild, our own list's Francesco Sirene, and places like Penzey's and
WorldSpice all come to mind as good sources of quite reasonably-priced,
high-quality saffron. I get an ounce for 28 dollars within walking
distance of my apartment, and an ounce is quite a lot of saffron -- a
compressed ball of the stuff about the size of your clenched fist. One
of these lasts me about a year, usually, and I often bring some of my
personal stock to events, so you can imagine I'm quite liberal with its use.

If you're not a hard-core saffron user, like, say, HG Cariadoc or
myself, it's probably more feasible to buy a gram of saffron, which
should cost you no more than about 5 dollars, including the
small-package markup. That's not the best price you can get for a gram
of the stuff by any means, but any more would be fairly criminal. Lots
of people on this list buy from the merchants I mention above, and I'm
sure could put you in touch with any of them. As I say, I just tend to
walk down the street for it, so I don't have the info handy. You should
probably try the dish with saffron at least once, to get an idea of how
it really is supposed to be.

I don't recall the details of the recipe: does it say to cook the lamb
until a thermometer reaches 150? And then it rests and the heat carries
over? That's pretty well-done by red meat standards. Let's see, now.
Most roasts needing to be rare-to-medium rare can be cooked to 110 and
carry over to 140-145 or so. So 120 for medium rare-to-medium, again,
depending on size. And so on, with an internal temperature of 150 when
you turn off the oven carrying over easily 20-30 degrees on a large cut
of meat, so that would be pretty well-done. Some mediterranean lamb
dishes are cooked almost like a stew until the meat is tender enough to
begin falling off the bones, so maybe rare is not the preferred stage
for this dish.
 
Just thinking out loud here...if 150 is the final temperature, it might
end up being medium, but it would be closer to 125 when you take it out
of the oven or turn the oven off; it'll continue to cook, as I say, in
its own ambient heat.
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com


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