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Omnivoria:
Anderson Ranch Lamb
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| USDA ARS file photo |
While I was soliciting suggestions for this month’s column, several people suggested that I write about ham, as it is a traditional Easter dish. But as I promised not to write about pork for the third month in a row, lamb came out the winner.
I have to confess that lamb is not something that I have much experience either cooking or eating, and I have no good reason for that. It’s probably just because I like pork so much that I tend to focus on it for special occasions when I’m likely to cook something like a roast. So, I braved new territory and brought home a lovely leg of lamb roast from the Co-op recently.
Lamb is usually associated with spring, partly because of its relation to Easter (it has always struck me as a little odd that lamb is a traditional dish for a holiday on which people are celebrating the resurrection of the Lamb of God, but my husband and I once had rabbit for Easter dinner, and I suppose that’s no less strange for us, since we mostly just celebrate the Easter Bunny), and partly because most lambs are born in the spring. However, in mild climates, sheep can be bred year-round for a consistent supply of fresh meat.
The lamb available at the Co-op comes from Anderson Ranches in Brownsville, Oregon (just off Interstate 5, midway between Corvallis and Eugene in the Willamette Valley). The Andersons have been raising sheep in Brownsville for five generations, but the current generation, Reed and Robyn, have taken the business to a new level with certification from Humane Farm Animal Care. The mission of HFAC is “to improve the welfare of farm animals by providing viable, credible, duly monitored standards for humane food production and ensuring consumers that certified products meet these standards.” Anderson lamb is also certified natural under the USDA, but the HFAC Certified Humane label has a lot more meaning and credibility (see www.certifiedhumane.org for more information on the specifics of the program, including the guidelines a sheep farmer must follow to qualify).
Sheep are generally easy to raise in a sustainable manner since they are very gentle grazers, and their grazing can also help control invasive weeds. Anderson lambs are also exclusively grass-fed, and are fed no by-products, hormones, or antibiotics. And since they are grass-fed, and not grain finished like much commercial lamb is, even the fat is better for you. Anyone who has read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma knows that the fat in grass-fed beef contains more healthy omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed beef, and the same is true for lambs.
Another label that Anderson lamb carries is “American Lamb.” Americans eat very little lamb compared to other countries where it is consumed (an average of less than 1 pound per person, per year, compared to New Zealand, which comes in first at 39.6 pounds per person, per year), but American lamb tends to fare better in taste tests compared to lamb from other countries. This is because the focus of breeding American lamb is on producing meat, whereas the sheep raised in other countries are sometimes raised primarily for their wool, and only secondarily for meat. (For more on the sheep industry, visit sheep101.info or sheepusa.org).
I confessed above that I hadn’t had much experience cooking lamb, and now I have to confess that that’s still the case, since my mom was visiting recently and she cooked the roast we had. But the recipe she used was very simple, and the potatoes cooked under the roast are particularly yummy. Lamb is a red meat, and has a very unique taste that is hard to describe, but not at all like beef. This taste gets stronger as the lambs get older, and is the reason that mutton (meat from mature sheep) is not very popular. Anderson lamb is wonderfully tender and juicy, and we all found the flavor to be just the right balance of distinctive taste without being too strong.
Roast Leg of Lamb on a Bed of Potatoes
Adapted from Gourmet, March 2002
Note: the proportions in this recipe matter very little, hence the vagueness of quantities. Use the spices according to how much you like them.
1 (6-8 pound) leg of lamb (for 8 servings; use a smaller roast if you’re feeding fewer people)
Several large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Chopped fresh thyme and rosemary (we only had rosemary on our roast, because we forgot to buy thyme, and it was still quite tasty)
4 lbs thinly sliced yellow-fleshed potatoes (or Ronniger’s rainbow potatoes)
5 Tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper
2 Tbsp honey
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Trim all fat from lamb. Cut small slits all over lamb with a sharp knife and put a slice of garlic and a pinch of thyme and rosemary into each slit.
Toss sliced potatoes with 4 Tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper, and more chopped herbs to taste in a large bowl. Spread the potatoes evenly in a large roasting pan. Put lamb on top of potatoes, then rub with honey (heat your honey up a little if the lamb is cold, otherwise it won’t spread easily) and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Roast lamb in middle of oven 1 hour then drizzle with 1 Tbsp olive oil. Continue to roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of lamb (do not touch bone) registers 135 for medium-rare, 30-45 minutes more. Let lamb stand, loosely covered with foil, 15 minutes before carving.
The original recipe also suggests that while the lamb is standing you sauté about 1 ¼ pounds of mixed tender greens in olive oil and garlic to serve with the lamb and potatoes, which complements the flavor of the meat quite nicely.
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