How Should Lamb Chops be Cooked?

[Mad Cook]

We skipped going to the Bacon Fest and went and had dinner at a place that we had never been to before. BIG MISTAKE.

First off I think some Yelp reviewers are liars. I would only have rated the place a 1, and that's just because I'm nice.They gave the place almost 5 stars.. Seriously?
That being said. I went out of my comfort zone and ordered what should have been Lamb chops. It was the Special on the dinner menu. They were chopped alright.

Never having it before I'm suspecting they over cooked it. Is Ketchup supposed to accompany it? I thought mint jelly was the rule.
It was tough as nails. dry as dust, flavorless. S&P was the only seasoning. Is that the way it should have been cooked?

Hubby and I traded plates. He's such a gentleman.

Ummm, the fish and chips that he ordered wasn't Cod as the menu said it was supposed to be. Rubber bands was more like it.
Our dogs loved it. They would.

Definitely NOT the way lamb chops should be cooked! My mother and grandmother used to roast them in the oven and I grill/broil mine. I like mine a little pink inside but others like them fully cooked but not "dry as dust, flavorless". Yours were over-cooked by anyone's standards. Over here we generally have mint jelly of mint sauce with lamb but some people enjoy redcurrant jelly with it. There's nothing to stop you putting ketchup or even HP Sauce with them but they wouldn't be my choice.

Definitely a restaurant to avoid.

 

[Mad Cook]

For sure Steve!

These are the gorgeous loin chops from Costco. They look like little Porterhouse steaks.

Yum!

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...this weekend for our 4th of July cookout, I'm making beef souvlaki rather than lamb or pork because it's the "safe" alternative.

My Mom loved lamb but had a dog who would bark wildly whenever she cooked it. He was a Corgi - probably had his herding gene kick in at the smell. Himself and I would have the folks over for shish kebobs every summer, skewers of lamb for those who loved it, beef for those who didn't. Worked out great. It should be easy to do even on the nights it's just you and your SO.

 

[Addie]

Come winter time, I look for the sickest lamb chops that nobody wants and use them for lamb stew with barley. Every one gets their own chop. And it is nice and tender and juicy. I have noticed over the years that those packages of lamb chops are usually as much as twenty-five cents a pound cheaper than the other packages with all the beautiful ones. I never buy any meat that has already been cut up and called stew meat. For me it is a rip off. You don't know what that meat really is.

 

[Caslon]

Shoulder lamb chops these days have a lot of fat running thru them. I remember years ago my parents buying lamb chops from the Navy commissary. They were oval shaped with a round bone towards one end. No fat running thru them. Today's lamb shoulder chops are fatty. When I do see one that looks lean, I freeze them. I have 2 or 3 halfway decent looking ones frozen. They still don't look like they did from decades past. Times have changed.

 

[Bigjim68]

Shoulder lamb chops these days have a lot of fat running thru them. I remember years ago my parents buying lamb chops from the Navy commissary. They were oval shaped with a round bone towards one end. No fat running thru them. Today's lamb shoulder chops are fatty. When I do see one that looks lean, I freeze them. I have 2 or 3 halfway decent looking ones frozen. They still don't look like they did from decades past. Times have changed.

I've not heard shoulder or leg cuts being labelled chops. (I think the photo is a round cut). Costco's lamb chops are loin cuts.

Funny about the fat. I consider most meat cuts available today over trimmed. The flavor and tenderness is in the fat. JMO.

 

[Andy M.]

That's not like any shoulder chop I've seen. Since I was a kid, shoulder chops look like the picture below. Notice it has a long bone along the bottom edge rather than a round bone in the center. I use them to make a lamb stew.

 

[RPCookin]

Shoulder lamb chops these days have a lot of fat running thru them. I remember years ago my parents buying lamb chops from the Navy commissary. They were oval shaped with a round bone towards one end. No fat running thru them. Today's lamb shoulder chops are fatty. When I do see one that looks lean, I freeze them. I have 2 or 3 halfway decent looking ones frozen. They still don't look like they did from decades past. Times have changed.

That looks more like what used to be regularly in the meat case as arm chops. They were tough as rubber, really only good for stew.

That's not like any shoulder chop I've seen. Since I was a kid, shoulder chops look like the picture below. Notice it has a long bone along the bottom edge rather than a round bone in the center. I use them to make a lamb stew.

Those were in the case as blade chops, and were usually quite tender and great for grilling or broiling. They were also much cheaper than the rib or loin chops, and I had them far more often.

Any more I rarely see either type. The lamb section in the supermarket seems to be more of an afterthought around here.

 

[Andy M.]

...Those were in the case as blade chops...

...as in, shoulder blade chops.

 

[taxlady]

Yeah, Andy's pic is what I am familiar with as shoulder chops. Like RPCookin, I find them tender enough for grilling or frying. OTH, Stirling doesn't like them because there is too much bone. I will probably use Andy's suggestion of using them for stew.

 

[Steve Kroll]

Shoulder lamb chops these days have a lot of fat running thru them. I remember years ago my parents buying lamb chops from the Navy commissary. They were oval shaped with a round bone towards one end. No fat running thru them. Today's lamb shoulder chops are fatty. When I do see one that looks lean, I freeze them. I have 2 or 3 halfway decent looking ones frozen. They still don't look like they did from decades past. Times have changed.

Ok. My dad was a butcher, so I grew up on this stuff. Your photo isn't a shoulder (or blade) chop, nor is it an arm steak, which is just the part of the shoulder cut extending into the front leg, and which tends to be a little more fatty. It's a lamb round steak, also called a leg steak or leg chop. It's a cut from the thigh and one of the more muscled parts of the animal. The bone running through it is the femur. Andy's photo correctly shows a shoulder chop.

 

[Caslon]

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, it wasn't the tenderest of meats, but still delicious.

 

[CharlieD]

Shoulder lamb chops these days have a lot of fat running thru them. I remember years ago my parents buying lamb chops from the Navy commissary. They were oval shaped with a round bone towards one end. No fat running thru them. Today's lamb shoulder chops are fatty. When I do see one that looks lean, I freeze them. I have 2 or 3 halfway decent looking ones frozen. They still don't look like they did from decades past. Times have changed.

That's the picture of shank


Sent from my iPhone using Discuss Cooking

 

[Addie]

That's not like any shoulder chop I've seen. Since I was a kid, shoulder chops look like the picture below. Notice it has a long bone along the bottom edge rather than a round bone in the center. I use them to make a lamb stew.

Absolutely! That is what I look for in the meat market. And I can often find them with a "Manager's Special" sticker on them. Lower sale price. Lamb chops that look like they were just hacked off the poor animal make for the best stew. I cut all the meat off the bone and treat like any other stew meat. Toss them into the liquid along with the browned bones. Then use a small amount of chicken broth in the sauté pan to scrape up all the fond. Pour into the stew pot. YUM!

 

[Caslon]

I don't care for lamb from Australia for making lamb curry. It's too gamey tasting. They grass feed them a lot which accounts for the overly gamey taste. On the other hand, I stopped buying packaged US lamb stew meat (at my supermarket) because US raised lamb is now mostly hay fed which leaves the lamb meat tasting just like beef, no lamb taste whatsoever. The chunks are very lean which is nice not having to trim the fat like I used to have to do, but it doesn't even taste like lamb now. I read the reason for this is that US lamb used to be fed grass while young, then switched to hay feed closer to butchering. This gave US lamb meat a nice lamb taste while not being too gamey tasting. Now they feed US lamb a lot less grass (too costly) and go primarily with hay. Some US raised lamb still has a good lamb taste, mostly in non-stew meat packages, but that gets expensive buying single chops and cutting them up into cubes for lamb curry or stews. My recipe calls for 2 to 2 1/2 lbs of fat trimmed lamb cubes. We're talking $35 or more now, whereas, I used to spend about $20 for the amount I needed. If I try and buy good lamb meat from a specialty butcher store, they charge one and a half times what supermarkets do.

 

[taxlady]

I like the lamb from New Zealand. It's pastured and pretty close to organic. It has a nice lamb flavour without being excessively lamby.

 

[Addie]

I like the lamb from New Zealand. It's pastured and pretty close to organic. It has a nice lamb flavour without being excessively lamby.

Same here when it is available. Otherwise I buy the shoulder lamb that no one else wants. I happen to like that lamby taste. It makes for a really flavorful stew. The cheaper the cut, the better the taste.

 

[Caslon]

I was referring to those blood soaked string wrapped lamb roasts in plastic packages from New Zealand (mistake, not Australia). I made some lamb curry from that and the gamey taste completely overwhelmed the curry taste. Never again.

P.S. I posted about shoulder chops when I should have said lamb leg chops.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lamb+leg+chops&biw=1280&bih=642&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ07P6idPNAhVU1WMKHWnzD5IQsAQIJw

 

[taxlady]

I have only ever bought the very tidy, frozen NZ lamb.

 

[Andy M.]

The main difference at the consumer level between New Zealand and US lamb is the lamb taste's being stronger with the New Zealand lamb. That's a conscious decision on he part of the US lamb industry to make their meat more mainstream marketable.