A Hankering for Lamb

Lamb Burger, Tzatziki, Harissa, Horiatiki Salata

Although I am not a big carnivore, I really do love lamb and would eat it in preference to beef just about any time. Lamb shanks are one of my all time favorites, but I would never turn up my nose at leg of lamb, marinated in rosemary, garlic, and red wine, grilled to medium rare. And in the burger department, I do believe I prefer lamb to most beef.

Out here in northwestern Oregon, lamb seems hard to come by and what I do find is exorbitantly priced. Maybe I just need more time to find the right suppliers. Or maybe it is the region. The Willamette Valley seems to be given over more to crops and nursery plants, where the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia hosted a lot more livestock.

I was spoiled in my restaurant days always having a ready supply of lamb. We would take delivery of a whole lamb each week. We went through about five suppliers in the tenure of the restaurant, so it must be hard to make a living raising sheep. Still, we had a constant stream of farmers coming to the restaurant to solicit our business and no shortage of lamb.

I would use the carcasses to teach my cooks (after they graduated from rabbits and fowl) how to break down and use every part of a larger animal, a skill that every chef should have, but so few possess. If we are going to kill an animal to eat it, we are obliged to let none of that animal go to waste. And we did not at the restaurant, a point of particular pride for me.

I would sometimes let a cook break down a lamb, but truth be told, I enjoyed doing it myself. I find something very zen about quickly and efficiently processing a carcass for maximum use. It also allowed me time away from the business aspects of running a restaurant to ponder how to use each cut of the animal.

Even though it was a lot of work each week with each new lamb, I enjoyed the mental gymnastics of figuring out how to put a lamb on the menu. Aside from the offal, which scared a lot of diners and mainly ended up as chef snacks and family meals, every bit had a use on the menu. When diners are looking for rack of lamb or a high-value cut that they recognize, it takes a lot of creativity to put the so-called lesser cuts (necks, breasts, and briskets) on the menu in a way that entices customers to order them.

The hind legs would inevitably end up on the grill in some form or another. The small top loins and tiny tenderloins would end up in a mixed grill, or sometimes on the nightly tasting menu where we would do something special with them. The shoulders and sirloins might get cubed and braised for a tagine or stew or they might also end up on the grill. 

The ribs might go on the appetizer menu, first slow-roasted to tenderness, then grilled at service. The bits and pieces would head for the grinder where they might end up in a terrine, in a meat pie, or on the lunch menu as lamb sliders.

The bones, neck, and so forth would end up getting braised, the picked meat going into some dish (lamb tamales or pot stickers, for example) and the stock being brought down to a demiglace for garnishing the grilling cuts.

The shanks would often go into the freezer for weeks until we could collect enough to put them on the menu. The much sought after racks, we would typically break down into one- or two-bone chops and put them on the tasting menu.

Customers would often ask, "Why don't you put rack of lamb on the menu?" I would always answer with a question of my own, "With two racks per animal and one animal per week, how many weeks would it take to have enough racks to get through a single night at the restaurant?"

With the 24x7 availability of cuts at the supermarket, I believe that many people are so disconnected from the process of butchery that they have forgotten the limited supply of choice cuts on a single animal, if they even considered it. Which brings me back to lamb burger: the lesser cuts often end up in the grinder for burger.

This reflection was brought about by the lamb burgers we had the other night, pan-seared and served with tzatziki, harissa, and a faux horiatiki salata.

Tzatziki

Tzatziki, by any one of its names, is ubiquitous in the Mediterranean and it varies depending on the cook and the region. Each batch that I make is different, depending on what I have on hand and what my mood is. I like my tzatziki really thick, so I make it that way. I prefer red wine vinegar to lemon juice, so I make it that way. I prefer oregano to dill, so I make it that way. I don't peel my cucumbers, because I like it that way. I hope you get the point: use this "recipe" as your jumping off point and make it your way.

1 quart Greek yogurt

1/4 cup extra virgin oil

2-3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar (or lemon juice) to taste

1 5-inch section of cucumber, rind on, finely diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano (or a big bunch of fresh oregano, minced)

salt to taste

Mix everything and adjust the seasoning to your liking. It's better after it stands overnight in the refrigerator.