28 November 2015

Le gigot d'agneau annuel


Every year at Thanksgiving, and for 20 or 30 years now, we cook a nice leg of lamb. I'm not sure why we started having lamb in November, except that we got tired of cooking poultry twice in one month's time at the end of the year — for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We'll have turkey or a capon or a guinea fowl for the December holidays.


Thanksgiving is a good occasion for a special treat like lamb. We seldom cook a second leg of lamb during the year. A gigot is really too much for the two of us, so when we cook one we eat it for three or four days running (if not longer), serving it several different ways.


The first day, it's a leg of lamb the French way, served with little green flageolet beans. The lamb is cooked rare in a hot oven and seasoned with garlic and thyme. Some years we have a vinaigrette-dressed green salad as part of the lamb feast, and some years we have some other green. Haricots verts are good with the flageolets. Yesterday, giving thanks for the new boiler, we made our dinner with lamb, beans, and collard greens cooked with tomatoes.


Today, we'll have cold rare lamb with home-made mayonnaise. It's something I learned to make more than 30 years ago, when I lived in Paris. The flageolets can be served warm with some chopped garlic and parsley added to them, or cold with vinaigrette. Add a green salad, especially if you didn't have one the day before.


There will be much lamb left over still. The rarest part of the meat, close to the bone, can be chopped or diced and made into a hash with onions, diced carrots, mushrooms, and some flageolet beans if there are any left. Collard greens will go well with that. Another option is to use the hash to make a shepherd's pie with some creamy mashed potatoes.


And so on. There's always the option of freezing some of the meat for later. This year, we got the leg of lamb from David Audas, a butcher down in Saint-Aignan. He's good, and he's our normal supplier. 

The other day, I needed to go to the local Intermarché supermarket for some things. I checked the butcher counter there, which is also very good, and I saw gigot d'agneau from the United Kingdom for about 18 euros a kilo. Call me chauvin, but I'd rather have French lamb.


Then I went up to SuperU for some other things and checked out the butcher counter there. Leg of lamb, from where I don't know, was priced at 23 euros a kilo. I decided the trip to David's butcher shop would be worth it. There, I got a 2.2 kg gigot, beautifully trimmed (un gigot raccourci) and "dressed" for just 18.50 euros per kilo. It's French-raised lamb from the Limousin region south of us, and the leg cost me just over 40 euros. We'll get six, eight, or even 10 delicious servings out of that, as described above.

20 comments:

  1. That'll be Welsh lamb from the UK... good stuff...
    but, having tried reasonably local French lamb...
    I'm like you... French every time...
    well worth the little extra cash.
    Better flavour and more tender...
    The un-countried one could have been eastern EU...
    or, worse still... thawed out New Zealand lamb... priced up!

    But your collard greens and tomatoes looks very nice, too...
    it appears to have some chickpeas lurking in there...
    pointer to recipe please... we can have some with our lamb chops this evening.
    Tareversuch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tim, I posted this recipe not much more than a month ago. It does include chickpeas and it's delicious. Lardons are optional.

      Delete
    2. We now have a slow cooker full of the wonderful stuff...
      used Black-eyes....
      an end of a hot chorizo...
      whole cumin seed rather than ground...
      no red wine vinegar open... so used white....
      and red Chinon wine instead of the white....
      otherwise as per recipe.
      Used our own paprika and a large poblano "Meek & Mild" that was almost ripe... again our own.
      The leaf was a mix of collard, Red Russian kale, Black Tuscan kale and some frost hit leaves of the Purple Sprouting brocolli...
      saves letting them rot in place.
      It was as wonderful as your picture looked....
      and it will be made frequently over the winter....
      possibly, occasionally resembling your method.


      One query... your recipe didn't say when to add the chickpeas...
      so I added the Black-eyes at the one hour in mark....
      they were pre-cooked in a jar.... so just like the chickpeas from a tin.
      Seemed to be fine...

      Delete
    3. That sounds delicious. You know how much I like black-eyed peas, which are typically U.S. Southern (and also African and Portuguese/Brazilian). If you are adding canned beans to the greens, you just need to put them in early enough so that they will be thoroughly heated up. I'm going to add some flageolet beans and some diced up lamb to my collard greens in tomato sauce for our lunch today. Your mixture of greens sounds delicious. Chard, turnip greens, or even cauliflower leaves would be good in the mixture. Mixed greens are also a very common dish in the U.S. South.

      Delete
  2. €18.50 = AU$27 We pay about $10 per kilo for a leg of lamb when on special but I am sure it would not be of the same quality as yours. While it was very expensive, the taste and tenderness of English lamb loin chops was amazing, and I guess they cost quite a lot but I can't remember the price.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We get frozen (or previously frozen and sold thawed) Australia or New Zealand lamb legs for 6 to 12 euros per kilo, according to the season. I buy them and use them for making spicy Kentucky-style pulled lamb barbecue or a slow-cooked seven-hour leg of lamb, among other things. The French lamb is really a luxury product, for special occasions, and meant to be simply roasted and served rare.

      Delete
    2. Pulled lab barbeque...I've never had it. It sounds wonderful.

      The other version that sounded appealing was the cold lamb with homemade mayo. Back in the 60s, when I was a kid, lamb always meant a side of mint jelly in the states, lol.

      Delete
    3. Oh god, not labrador, lamb...I'm still on my first coffee this morning, lol.

      Delete
  3. We have lamb every Thanksgiving and love the leftovers. Lamb hash is delicious, as is lamb stew made with very tart little apples, pearl onions and spinach or kale. The lamb is probably not of the quality yours would be, but still tasty

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All that sounds really good. I'll have to try that stew using some of my tomato-braised collard greens.

      Delete
  4. Wish I were there! In my opinion, lamb is la reine des viandes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The next time you come to Saint-Aignan, we'll have to roast a gigot d'agneau in the oven.

      Delete
    2. That's a deal. I can't wait!

      Delete
  5. Thinking about hash...
    some twenty or so years back, one of the corned beef companies...
    can't remember which...
    but it was a well known household name... in the ilk of Fray Bentos...
    suddenly started to do tins of corned lamb...
    it was very nice and a more flavoursome alternative...
    then, after about two years...
    it vanished off the shelves...
    never to be seen again!
    Shame!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lewis loves lamb also! He's probably never tasted one like you had.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This all sounds wonderful. I love lamb, but as there are only two of us here and I'm the only one who eats meat, I don't get it anymore. I used to buy a spring lamb from a local farmer and split it with my daughter, but no more. But lamb chops are delicious!
    My mother always made curried lamb with rice and peas with the leftovers, and I used to do that too. It's also very good and rather different from the gigot.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well that sure is more than our Thanksgiving turkey.....on sale for $0.58/pound......

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have never eaten the leg of leg/. I think is a tasty meat

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh my, that looks good! Lamb is my favorite meat.

    ReplyDelete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?