Pokemon Christmas Bash

The lamb came out wonderfully. Despite my new probe thermometer periodically freaking out and claiming the lamb was 300 degrees. The recipe I used is a bizarre combination of Alton Brown, Julie Child, Betty Crocker, and the old school stuff from my Ranhofer book:

1 leg of lamb (about 6 pounds) boned (yielding something like 4.something) and with silverskin and excess fat trimmed (so like 4 pounds usable)
5 Tbs "Strong Mustard" (so not French's yellow. I mixed like 1 part Grey Poupon to 2 parts grainy stone ground)
Sauce:
~6 cloves garlic
~2 nice sized shallots
1Tbs brown sugar
1Tbs kosher salt
2tsp black pepper
2Tsp olive oil
some mint (1/2 tsp?)
some rosemary (1 tsp? )
some sage, coriander, thyme (you know, to taste)
Roasting:
a few pounds red skin potatoes (enough to cover pan bottom)
a leak (cleaned and chopped into two large chunks)
head of garlic (cut in half)
vermouth (just bring the bottle)

Combine the sauce in the food processor, and mix until smoothish.

Bone and butterfly the leg of lamb (it's not that hard, just kind of zen it), and then clean off excess fat and silverskin (it's the tough outer membrane of the muscles. It doesn't dissolve into gelatin, so it needs to be removed. I usually leave a decent slice of fat on the outside part of the leg. That's the side without the ball visible.). Rub the sauce all over the inside of the leg, and then roll up into the best roast you can (good luck!) and then tie with twine.

Heat some olive oil in the pan (I used my fancy Martha Stewart pan, but a roaster would work fine), and then sear the outside of the roast. When browned, pull the roast, put the potatoes in (in hindsight, these should be rubbed down with olive oil and salt first), place herbs in the center, put roast on top, and then put the leak and garlic around the outside edge. Add some vermouth around everything (for funsies), and chuck in the oven.

Now, Alton uses a grill, Betty says 325, Julia says 350, and Charles wants us to use a spit and roaring fire. Hmm....Let's go with Julia on this one. It's probably going to run about 1.75 to 2.0 hours to cook, and if your thermometer doesn't fight you, you'll want to cook it until the temperature reads 130.

At this point, I had to drive over to Charles, so counting on the MS pan to stay a billion degrees, I dumped in more vermouth, put the lid on tight, and drove. On arrival, I put it on the stovetop (covered) until the liquid simmered, to let it braise for the 30 minutes or so until everyone arrived and was ready for food.

The party consisted of:

Me: Roast Lamb
Charles: Ham
Catherine: Green Bean Casserole
Dave: Cookies
Eric + family: Pies
Carolyn: ?
Phil: Noodles with cheesy, bacon-y, tasty sauce
1st-year Grad Girl: Hummus
1st-year Grad Boy A: croquettes? latkes? They were good.
1st-year Grad Boy B: chips?

So, no bread. :( Everything was pretty good, and my lamb seemed to go over pretty well (Catherine's comment was "the only time I eat lamb is when you make it."). The movie list was "Home Alone," "Dinner for One" (A German short Phil brought), "Grinch," "Garfield Christmas," and "Snoopy Christmas." All in all a good thing.

The picture above is all that's left of the roast. I picked up a can of chicken broth at QD (they don't sell beef? WTF?), and it's all on the stove right now slowly being converted to stew.

Last tip on the lamb: Don't leave you oven set to 350 while you go to a party. Probably not the best strategy.