This past Monday I cooked a whole leg of lamb for 8 people. I’d been nervously anticipating this meal for months. From my first spin through Nothing Fancy, the sight of this recipe — Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb, totally intimidated me. I knew I’d have to save it for last, figuring I’d need at least a year’s worth of cooking practice before I could safely attempt to deal with the entire leg of a large animal...
I was right and I was wrong.
I was wrong because even with a year of intentional cooking under my belt, I still messed up. Alison gives two sets of instructions in the recipe for roasting and braising. I went the braising route because she says it’s less scary and more foolproof. I covered the lamb and its baking dish with aluminum foil and stuck it in the oven at 300 degrees for the minimum time listed: 3 hours. But I don’t think the foil stayed tightly wrapped the whole time, and thus, too much steam escaped, allowing the meat to dry out some.
I should have checked it part way through, as an insurance policy. But part of me felt like checking on meat before it’s supposed to be done was “the old Annie.” The old Annie who doubted herself and the process. In her many meat recipes, Alison routinely says things like “resist the temptation to peak” or “don’t even bother peaking until the timer goes off - it won’t be ready before then, I promise”. I tried to actually followed her advice for once. (I’m not blaming her for the fail, but you get the point.) To be clear, the lamb wasn’t ruined — the flavor rocked, and the meat was still tender. But did it fall apart at the touch the way Alison describes? Definitely not.
I was also right that this recipe should be saved for the end because after a year’s worth of intentional cooking, I’ve seen great improvement in my ability to get something wrong and not feel ashamed about it.
A year ago, I would have been mortified the moment I cut into the lamb and realized what had happened. I can just picture the way my cheeks would have reddened and my heart started to pound. And to be sure, that was a temptation for me last Monday. But only for a moment. Instead, I paused and thought, “That’s what this whole process is about, right? Learning — getting it wrong so you can eventually get it right. Your friends are here to join you in that project, not to consume something perfect.”
As my friends sat around the table, I stood to give an introduction to the meal. At the end, I explained that the lamb didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. It wasn’t tough, but it was dry. But then I said, mostly for myself, that I was grateful that they agreed to participate in my project — a project that emphasized learning over perfection. And I sat down, unashamed.
If you know me personally, you know that this kind of moment is a huge marker of growth.
The lamb is served atop a bed of thinly sliced fennel and herbs marinated in red pepper flakes and lemon juice - and truly, it was exactly what the lamb needed to balance its saltiness. Alison doesn’t mention this, but after 3 hours of braising, the sliced fennel bulb that cooks underneath the lamb in the braising liquid is soft and infused with all of the lamb’s spices - fennel seed and cumin seed. I scooped them out of the baking dish and tossed them with the fresh fennel slices before laying the slices of lamb on top. It added even more flavor and substance to the dish. I served the lamb, sprinkled with sumac, alongside a bowl of sour cream.
And thus marked my second to last All-Out-Alison meal of the project:
Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb
Sour Cream Flatbreads (for dipping into the fennel juices and leftover limey sour cream from the beets)
219 recipes cooked, 6 to go.
