I know that lamb isn't widely used in other countries, but one of my families faves is Lamb Backstrap, grilled, and sliced thinly and used with pita bread tzaziki and salad...but it's expensive...$22US/lb expensive.
One of the Oz cooking shows has a butcher on it who shows how to buy cheap, and cook great...an episode a couple of weeks ago made so much (common) sense that we are going to have a crack this weekend.
He laid out a lamb backstrap, and explained...single muscle, fibres running longitudinally. Cook it, cut it (clearly accross the grain), and it's melt in the mouth tender...same as fillet. Shrinks longitudinally in cooking as the fibres shorten.
The showed a piece of lamb shank...a stabilising muscle group, made up of lots of of muscles, criss crossing in structure...all of them shrink longitudinally, compressing the ball as it cooks, and half the time you are biting across the grain...made perfect sense...we cook them low and slow so that they start to fall apart "fork tender".
Then proceeded to pull apart a lamb shoulder roast, using a boning knife.
For the big muscles, he followed the silver sheath between them, and dissected the larger muscles into individual muscles, all of which could be treated similarly to backstrap.
Explained that same technique could be applied to many different cuts of cheaper meat, to make "good" cuts that aren't time effective for a butcher to carry out in the home with a bit of fiddling.
Have been trying to find the episode on line, but those of us who have hunted game and butchered them ourselves probably get the gist.
Explains why rabbits are so danged tough at times.
One of the Oz cooking shows has a butcher on it who shows how to buy cheap, and cook great...an episode a couple of weeks ago made so much (common) sense that we are going to have a crack this weekend.
He laid out a lamb backstrap, and explained...single muscle, fibres running longitudinally. Cook it, cut it (clearly accross the grain), and it's melt in the mouth tender...same as fillet. Shrinks longitudinally in cooking as the fibres shorten.
The showed a piece of lamb shank...a stabilising muscle group, made up of lots of of muscles, criss crossing in structure...all of them shrink longitudinally, compressing the ball as it cooks, and half the time you are biting across the grain...made perfect sense...we cook them low and slow so that they start to fall apart "fork tender".
Then proceeded to pull apart a lamb shoulder roast, using a boning knife.
For the big muscles, he followed the silver sheath between them, and dissected the larger muscles into individual muscles, all of which could be treated similarly to backstrap.
Explained that same technique could be applied to many different cuts of cheaper meat, to make "good" cuts that aren't time effective for a butcher to carry out in the home with a bit of fiddling.
Have been trying to find the episode on line, but those of us who have hunted game and butchered them ourselves probably get the gist.
Explains why rabbits are so danged tough at times.