Broast Lamb

Well hello there. I want to start todays segment by saying that I do not support endorse, or otherwise even understand what the term Broasting means, but I felt compelled to use it in the title, just so I could have this rant. That and I think I broasted my leg of lamb, and it was delicious. To me, to braise something, you steam/boil, read: Braise it is a liquid, covered or not, until the meat is tender and well done. Roasting on the other hand, is a dry heat, in an oven, done until the internal temperature of the roast is roughly 15°F cooler than you want the final temperature to reach (this is called carry-over cooking). The significant difference, of course, is the total disolution of the cartilage tissue during braising, extracting gelatin from the meat and bones. This dissolving of the tissue holding the meat together is reason is falls apart to the touch, and the reason the resulting sauce congeals. J-E-L-L-O! or something like that. I never saw Cosby advertise lamb jello...

So I had this Leg of lamb, boned, and ready to roast, or whatever. I opened it up, spread copious salt and a little less copious amounts of ground black pepper, rolled it back up and seared the sides to get the browning of the sides and develop a fond (this is important for brasing and for gravies made after roasting). While the pan was still searing hot, I added 1# of large dice mirepoix and got some more brown, using some masa at the very end to make a rudimentary roux. I placed the lamb on top, and covered with 2 cups of eggplant marinara from end of the season, and two.5 cups of chicken stock. This I covered, and put into the oven.

Naturally, this is braising. However, when the lamb was finished, lo, the top with plenty marinara still attached and nicely browned, had much more of a roast fell than the submerged meat (though due to the high steam content, the difference was really very minimal). I removed the lamb, carefully due to its FTWD status (Fork Tender Well Done), defatted the remaining liquid, and using my hand held Cuisinart, blended the mixture to a smooth rust-orange luster. What a sauce!

The lamb disappeared much faster than the sauce, which has subsequently been used to rehydrate and thus perfect some older chicken breats from the fridge. This is Chef Zack, signing off for the first report of week one: culinary adventures of the extremely busy.