Leg of Lamb Quartet - Sous Vide, Pressure Cooked, Steamed, and Grilled

Lamb it one of my favorite meats that I enjoy cooking and eating (pre-vegan days). My favorite cuts of lamb are the rack of lamb and the leg of lamb. Lamb chops are nice but I just don't cook it that often enough to appreciate it. Last weekend our friend Linda from New Zealand was visiting us and I wanted to see if I could create a perfect leg of lamb dish since she is a resident lamb expert living in NZ! Also my kids are not fond of lamb since they have only eaten lamb cooked traditionally as a roast. This was my second challenge to create something they would enjoy eating.

Instead of cooking a single perfect dish I thought it would be fun to create four different dishes with different techniques and serve it as a tasting menu. The four lamb dishes were:

• Pressure cooked lamb with a puff pastry crust
• Steamed ground lamb Siu Mai style
• Sous vide lamb with a wild mushroom sauce over roasted Yukon potatoes
• Grilled curry lamb with a veggie curry dipping sauce

The cooking techniques for each of the different items are very different and I was curious about the rankings for each of the dishes. Believe it or not there was not a clear winner! The ranking for each of the dishes by individual differ due to preferential taste. For example my wife ranked the puff pastry first and the curry last because she was never fond of curry. Our friend, Linda from New Zealand preferred the curry dish over the puff pastry because she loves curry! 

I started off with making a trip to Costco for the largest leg of lamb that I could find. Costco leg of lamb is quite good, inexpensive, and it is from Australia. I have used Costco lambs in the past and have never been disappointed. Let's start with the sous vide lamb.

Sous Vide Lamb with Wild Mushroom Sauce

• 1 lb. leg of lamb with the fat and tendon removed
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper
• 1 tbsp. crushed garlic
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 2 lbs. Yukon potatoes
• 8 oz wild mushrooms (fresh or dried)
• Mushroom Roux - butter, flour, and mushroom broth

Preparation is quite simple for the lamb. Season the lamb with the rosemary, salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic. Place this in a bag and vacuum under the "moist" setting. I like to use a Foodsaver for my vacuum packing. Place the lamb in a water bath (Sous Vide Supreme) at 127 degrees for 20 hours.  I have experimented with lamb at 30 hours and at 10 hours. 30 hours makes the meat too tender and mushy while at 10 hours it is a bit tough. 20 hours is just perfect at 127 degrees. 

While the lamb is cooking, make a mushroom based roux about an hour before serving. In a pan melt about 3 tbsp. of butter. Cook the wild mushroom in the roux until all the liquid from the mushroom has evaporated. Add about 3 tbsp. of flour to the mushroom and stir until the flour just begin to turn brown -- approximately a minute or two. Immediately add a pint of mushroom broth and continue stirring. If you don't stir quick enough the sauce will be lumpy and you'll have to start over again. The sauce will thicken almost immediately. Add salt and pepper to taste and set it aside. Take the Yukon potatoes and slice about 1/4" thick and soak in salt water for about 5 minutes. Dry the potatoes and drizzle olive oil over it.  Grill it on the BBQ for about 2 minutes on each side until golden brown.

Remove the lamb from the water bath and cut the bag and pour the liquid from the bag into the mushroom roux. This will give the mushroom roux a nice lamb flavoring. Immediately sear the outside of the lamb on a very hot pan with vegetable oil for about 3-4 minutes.  Don't use olive oil because the smoking point is too low. Place the grilled potatoes on the plate first, add slices of the lamb, and then top with the mushroom roux.  You will have the most tender piece of medium-rare lamb that you'll ever eat!!!

Puff Pastry Pressure Cooked Lamb
I love my pressure cooker. Pressure cooking is a lost art and under appreciated because people link pressure cookers to the old days where things would explode unexpectedly. A lot has changed with pressure cooking where it is very safe and easy to use. This is also a very simple recipe and easy to make.

• 1 lb of leg of lamb chopped into 1" cubes
• 2 medium size carrots - chopped
• 1/2 yellow or sweet onions - chopped
• 1/2 lb fresh cremini or shitake mushrooms - cut in half
• 3 garlic cloves - crushed
• 1 pint of beef broth (unsalted)
• Flour
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 tsp of Cajun seasoning
• Puff pastry sheet

Take the lamb cubes and season with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Coat the cubes evenly with flour and set aside. Heat up the pressure cooker and add olive oil. Brown the lamb cubes evenly for about 5 minutes and add the rest of the ingredients. Cover the pressure cooker and set it to high pressure (15 psi) for about 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes is up let the pressure release naturally. After the pressure is released, open the lid and thicken the sauce with a cornstarch water mixture. Take some small ramekins and spoon the lamb mixture into them. Top each of the lamb mixture with puff pastry enough to cover the top. Bake in the oven at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until the puff pastry is puffed and brown.

Steamed Lamb Dumplings - Sui Mai Style
Traditional sui mai is normally made with ground pork and shrimp. I modified this recipe to use ground lamb instead. One of the nicest find on ebay was a old 1960 metal meat grinder for our kitchen aid mixer.  It was expensive but worth every penny!

• 1 lb ground lamb meat (grinding your own lamb meat is preferred)
• 4 dried shitake mushroom (rehydrate with hot water and chopped)
• 1/2 lb of fresh shrimp chopped coarsely
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 tsp of corn starch
• 2 tsp of soy sauce
• 1/4 cup green onion chopped
• Thin wonton skins (round preferred but square will do)

Combine the lamb, mushroom, shrimp, egg, corn starch, soy sauce, and green onion in a bowl and stir until everything is well mixed. Take a wonton skin and moisten the outside edge with either egg or water. Spoon about a tablespoon of the lamb mixture in the middle and fold the edges of the wonton up to form the dumpling. Steam the dumpling from 12 to 15 minutes in a steamer. Garnish with soy sauce and your favorite chili oil.  Super simple and simply delicious!

Grilled Curry Lamb with Vegetable Curry Dipping Sauce
Here is another simple dish to make! It has a bit of Indian/Singaporean flavor to it.

• 1 lb lamb cut into 2" cubes
• Curry powder
• Cajun seasoning
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• Japanese curry cubes (medium hot)
• 2 carrots chopped
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 1 potato chopped (optional)

Take the lamb cube and marinate with the curry powder, Cajun seasoning, and olive oil. Place the lamb in the refrigerator over night. In a sauce pan, add olive oil and brown the onions for about 3-4 minutes. Add the carrots and potatoes. Add about a cup of water and approximately 2 cubes of the Japanese curry. Stir the mixture and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Place the marinated lamb cube on skewers (flavored preferred) and grill on a BBQ for about 8-10 minutes until it has cooked through. Serve the grilled lamb with the dipping sauce. 

Results: No clear winner and everyone including my kids enjoyed the lamb. Success!!