Nice joint you've got here

Perhaps because I was thinking of my friend Charlie, who's British, common British usage is in my head today.

One of the words that I grew up with as a "Britishism" was "joint." NOT as a reefer, or as a place to hang out, but as a term for a large cut of meat. Of course, it eventually became "vulgarized" so to speak as in referring to penisses. I remember a large laugh coming up from the audience when I attended that lovely movie "Stevie," with Glenda Jackson playing one of the most wonderfully understated characters she's ever played, when her mother goes into the kitchen to "prod the joint." She's roasting a leg of lamb.

And tonight, so am I. Lamb is one of those meats that polarizes people, and not for the same reason that veal does. You rarely hear people talking about inhuman treatment of lambs, or penning of the animals, etc, although the same issues pertain to lamb husbandry as do to veal. I wonder why that is. In any event, when you buy lamb, if you eat it, you do have to take the same considerations into mind as you do when buying veal, or any other animal. Go for grassfed, humanely raised and butchered animals, and Annalena is with you.

The availability of lamb, and other proteins, all year long, is evidence of the loss of "seasonality" for proteins. When I was young, "spring lamb" meant something. That's because it was early spring, just around Easter, when the first "lambings" happened, and lamb was something you ate in the spring. As the animals got older during the year, you ate mutton, if you ate it at all. Mutton is very strong, and most people, myself included, do not care for it. Other proteins have loss their seasonality as well. For example, chickens do not do well in hot weather, so frying chicken in the summer was not a simple, cheap meal. It was a luxury. On the other hand, pork was what you ate in deep winter, because that's when the animals were butchered and the "cure" of things like bacon and sausage had taken effect. And so on, and so forth.

So, even though it is late August, we are having lamb. Like I said above, lamb polarizes people. There is a saying in parts of France that goes something like "if you are invited to someone's home and you are not served lamb, you have been insulted." Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that many people don't care for the strong flavor that lamb has. Or, what they REMEMBER lamb having. I remember that flavor. It came, for the most part, from fat on the lamb, fat that was "pushed" by inappropriate feeding and husbandry. These days, if you get the lamb from a reputable purveyor, this issue is really just about gone. It is very easy to confuse lamb's taste with other tastes, as a matter of fact. And that's not good.

You have to strike a balance with lamb. It DOES have flavor notes and nuances that other meats don't have, but you don't want to push them forward so much as to overwhelm taste buds. In the case of the leg, I find that the best way to do this is by "herbal infusion," and with a glaze with some sweetness to it.

When you buy a leg of lamb, you should buy it on the bone. It's actually easier to cook it that way, than if it's boned, or "butterflied." It WILL take longer,but it's worth it. And when you buy it on the bone, make sure that they're not selling you that tail tip of the bone, with no meat on it, as part of your "joint." Those bones are expensive, and unless you're a real fan of marrow, all you're doing is getting a present for a dog.

A good leg of lamb will weigh about 5-6 pounds when you get it. The way I cook it , is to prepare it a bit ahead of time. I do my usual salting in the refrigerator, but I also cut slits in the fat, all the way through to the meat, and insert slivers of garlic, and pieces of rosemary, alternately, and liberally. The garlic is essential. You can use other herbs, but DO use lots of garlic. Then I let the lamb leg sit overnight or at least for the day, with the herbs and garlic in it.

To roast it, I crank up the oven to 450, and position a rack in the middle of the oven. I have a good, sturdy roasting pan with a rack. If you don't have one of those, ball up four balls of tin foil, about the same size, and position them so that your lamb can rest on them. Get the lamb into the oven, and let it roast at that temperature for twenty minutes. What you'll be doing is setting a crust on the lamb, and beginning to melt the fat out. You won't really be cooking the meat, though. That happens next. You lower the temperature to 350, and then you get set to let the meat cook for a good hour and a half. Don't do anything for the first hour. When you're down to the last half hour, though, get your glaze. What should the glaze be? Something swet, but also with a bit of bite. Orange marmalade is good. So is a strong tasting honey. I prefer pomegranate molasses, but really, it's up to you. Some people just use plain citrus juice.

Now, you may be wondering why I waited so long to put on the glaze. Well, it's because of a common mistake that people make with glazes, both in the oven, and on the barbecue. If you put a glaze on too early in the cooking process, the glaze carmelizes, and all you will taste is burn. You will NOT get any flavor of the product itself. So wait. Apply a nice coat of glaze, and then after fifteen minutes, do it again. When you're about to take the meat out of the oven, glaze it one more time.

How do you know when to take it out? Now, this is a very good question. The timing I have given you will provide a medium rare lamb, which is the way I like it. That is, MOST of the lamb will be medium rare. Lamb leg is oddly shaped, and parts of it will cook more than others, so you WILL have different degrees of doneness. What I would suggest you do is make a cut at the deepest part of the joint and look at the color. If it's too raw for you, cook it for another fifteen minutes. And so on. But keep in mind y ou're going to want the lamb to rest for 15-20 minutes after you've taken it out of the oven. That will let the juice redistribute, and it will also make it much easier to slice nice, even, thin slices of the meat.

Lamb is almost always served with something to use as a bit of a sauce. For some people, it's mint jelly, and that's fine. Or marmalade. I suggest that whatever you've used as your glaze be provided, in excess, for people to add as they see fit.

A five pound leg of lamb is going to provide a LOT of meat. Plenty to share. So invite some friends, and have a celebration. And thank the lamb before you put the leg in the oven. That's something that Nana taught me to do.