Topic: Tender lamb joint - what's best method

[livo]

So I'm told. I don't have the book though, only those 2 pages.

[livo]

Well this could have been a disaster but it all turned out OK.  I found an unopened pack of foil trays.

"Phew," (wiping my brow with the back of my hand.) "that was close!!!"

I began this by first analysing the original recipe for the slow cooked lamb and deciding on suitable "currified" ingredient substitutions.  Possibly not surprisingly, once the Napolitano sauce was modified it turned out pretty similar to a base gravy and examination of JB's looked pretty close anyway so I made a reduced quantity of that first up.

For the pre-oven work on the main dish I cut the lamb smaller and only used 1/2 the quantity, then fried off some usual whole spices followed by onion and G/G paste then added the lamb to brown it off.  I subbed in some red and green capsicum and green chilli for the carrots and celery before assembling the whole thing in a lidded cast iron Dutch oven.

5 hours in at 130'C and with a stir 1/2 way through and the result was a very pleasing, fall-apart lamb curry.  (Slow Lamb).  This shows a lot of potential for tweaking into any number of differently spiced dishes.

[livo]

Slow lamb.

I also did a Badami Beef in the pressure cooker, some spinach dal, and had some leftover Rajma Masala from the previous night.  Some rice and naan bread, then settled in to watch the Burgess brothers and James Graham show the Aussies how to play Rugby League in the Grand Final of the NRL.

[JerryM]

Fried,

3.5kg is some piece - well impressed. Most ive tackled 1.5kg.

The grilling is something ive kept in mind.

Feedback on how it turned out appreciated.

[fried]

The 3.5kg included the bone, but I still fed 4 people on the first night and had enough for 4 generous portions of dansak.

You could even cook the meat longer, but the missus was cooking and it's her recipe, so who am I to argue. The meat still has 'bite' which we prefer. Before grilling the lamb was brushed with olive oil and 'sal?a' which is a hot re pepper puree.

The dansak was beautiful, I'll certainlu use this method again for my once yearly lamb curries.

[JerryM]

had another go at slow cook beef. used the onion bed and a small amount of water just to cover the onion bed - say 10 mm. cooked it 5 hrs at 130C. beef does not need blackening - it seems to darken easily on its own.

feel a further reduction in temp is defo going to be needed to get to the 9 hr cook (needed for the meat to soften enough). currently in reducing the amount of water cover i'm finding the meat's drying out too much. if you add more water say half cover the taste seems to drain away more. it feels a catch 22. i suppose basting every 1 hr might make a difference and worth a try - it feels a tad ott though and should not be needed. hence idea to reduce temp.

in short from what ive seen so far i think the 125C from the 9 hr recipe might not be low enough - i guess it depends much on the size of the joint being cooked (1.5kg say).

any thoughts on what temp might be needed - appreciated. i'm thinking 100C so that the joint will steam in the covered dish.

[livo]

Beef is very different to lamb. Different parts of the animal produce a very different cut of meat and these perform with much greater variability.  You can (almost) cook just about any part of a lamb any way and get similar a result whereas the same cannot be said for beef.

My understanding is that slow cooking the tender cuts like Fillet and Rib eye will actually toughen them while trying to fast cook a piece of Chuck makes it impossible to eat.  Having said that though there is the Hog's Breath Cafe restaurant chain that does minimum 18 hour beef steak which is as tender as you could hope for.  I believe they slow cook it in an oven on very low heat from the previous day and throw it on a hot plate momentarily to char grill the outside.

Beef is actually much more difficult to do well than lamb.  Let me do some research and I'll get back to you.

OK. So a lot of slow cooked beef uses Heston Blumenthal's 6 hour Roast Beef principle and there is a distinct difference between slow cooking prime cuts as compared to cuts that have to be slow-cooked, like chuck and brisket.

Heston's 6 Hour Roast Beef

Try this. Core temp not to exceed 58'C.
Slow Tender Beef

or this,
18 Hour Bacon wrapped beef eye fillet

[JerryM]

livo,

many thanks - a real eye opener. at least i now know i'm not mad.

not sure if i could go with such a colour which would be step change for me (and most of UK).

will try going down to 100C on the next go for sure. will keep ballpark 55C in the back of my mind for now.

ps agree on the difference - it was our butcher who had recommended brisket as what he believed an equal to lamb shoulder for slow cook. both taste really nice. just need to get the cooking optimized.

[livo]

Heston's meat is a bit rare for me too.  I don't mind pink middle but I like the animal to be dead.

[JerryM]

tried out the 100C cook. the oven ranged from 100 to 110C. cooked brisket for 6 hrs covered. added sliced onion base and 10 mm water cover.

am pretty sure i'm now sorted on slow cook temp at 100/110C. the meat did not dry out.

next step will be to go up to the 9 hrs cook.

for info the liquid cover on the 100/110 cook actually increased as liquid comes from the onion and the oven temp is not hot enough to force it to escape as steam. the cover remained at 25 mm all the way through.

amazingly the meat inside looked the same (dark ie cooked) as it does at 130C - no hint of pink. i'm hoping the increase in cooking from 6 to 9 hrs will yield a bit more melt in the mouth texture. the 100/110C 6 hr easily forked.

feel i'm almost there leaving the "blackening" for the lamb left "todo" either by increased oven temp at end (200C) or grill.