Still More Pewter Chef - Battle Ground Lamb

My friend Doug had purchased a large pack of grass fed lamb from a provider in South New Mexico from a Groupon deal. Of course, as his Wife Cindy pointed out, they had never even tried lamb before. And when he tried his first attempt with one of the five pounds of ground lamb, it was a disaster with no one being able to eat it.

Having mentioned this to me in despairing state, I told him to fear not, The Pewter Chef would find a way to convert his pounds of ground lamb into edible wonders.

My instructions were to bring a pound of the offending ground lamb along with equal amounts of ground pork and ground turkey.

The first step was to determine if the lamb was really off or if it was a question that Doug and Cindy just didn't know what lamb tasted like. We determined it was the later.

Then I made a blend of 1/3rd of each of the meats - lamb, pork, and turkey - and we tested those

Success. Yes, both Cindy (who was the most sensitive to the taste of lamb) and Doug found the meat acceptable. So it was on to various preparations.

The first was Kofte Kebabs, a Turkish round meat dish. It consisted of a ground pistachios, cumin, mint, pepper, oregano, harissa (hot pepper paste - see my August 2011 post) mixed with the ground meat, formed into oval shapes and cooked for 7 minutes at 450 degrees - very simple.


The next was a Chinese ground meat dish. Just take chopped garlic and ginger, a little sherry, some good soy sauce, some toasted sesame oil, and home purchased Chinese chile garlic sauce. Mix the flavorings and let them marinate for at least 30 minutes. Then saute in oil. Add a little stock and thicken with a corn starch slurry.

I also whipped up a saute of fresh corn (frozen from last summer) green and red bell pepper, onion, some rosemary from our garden, and some red chile powder.

Our finale from the Ground Lamb Challenge

Oh, I also marinated some strawberries in rum, honey, with fresh lavender (from our garden) and fresh mint which we put on ice cream.

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