Tips For Cooking Lamb On The Grill

One of the great foodies on Twitter asked me if I had ever cooked lamb? I had to answer, “No, because it’s really expensive where I live”. So what do I do? I go to Costco and buy myself a four and a quarter pound Genuine Australian Lamb Leg Roast, with the whole idea of cooking this Dude up on my Traeger Grill?

Hey, the price was $3.99 a pound which really isn’t all that horrendous for a lean cut of high quality meat. And, I am going have to back off the “too expensive bit”, especially if compared to the latest cost of Halibut, or Kobe Beef, maybe even hamburger or hotdogs per pound. Ok, I’m starting to get it!

I did a little bit of research on the net (which is a first) and attempted to find an original and cool recipe that I could use on the grill. Well, I found a pretty good one from this nice lady, Elise Bauer and her “Simple Recipes” Page.

She has a super nice site and gave me permission to pass on her marinade recipe for a lamb roast. Bless her, and if you don’t do anything else today, please check her site out!

Now, back to the “lamb” and, yes, lamb things are surfacing: “Mary Had A Little Lamb! ”The Lamb Band!” “Shop L.A.M.B.!” “Silence of the Lambs!” “ Lions for Lambs!”

Ok, my brain is starting to rally and here comes the “Marinade” Per Elise:

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup white wine
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 2 Tbsp of fresh chopped rosemary or 1 Tbsp of dried rosemary
• 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil

Blend ingredients in a blender, just a few pulses are more than cool! She uses plastic bags to marinate the lamb in. I did not. I prefer a Tupperware Marinating container. I have talked about this in previous posts. Her liquid portions are great for the plastic bags, but you may want to cut it down for the Tupperware….cut the liquid in half, and just make sure to rotate the container at least once. Marinate overnight!

Her lamb was cooked in the oven. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I like the way she did it, using a water pan between the heat and the lamb roast to give the meat added moisture. I keep harping about this when using a gas grill.

It’s a form of indirect cooking and adds both flavor and moisture through self-basting. Your charcoal smokers utilize this type of cooking and the end results can be excellent.

However, I wanted to grill mine using the Traeger, along with burning Hickory wood pellets. Since a Traeger cooks on indirect heat I didn’t put a water pan under the lamb, but I filled two small bread pans with leftover marinade and placed them along side the roast.

Set the BBQ grill or oven at medium temperature. I set the Traeger at 350 degrees. Make sure to let the lamb sit out thirty minutes prior to cooking.

My variation from Elise’s recipe was to rub down the lamb roast with Sea Salt prior to grilling. I thought it just might help to seal the juices in just a little bit more.

After it was on the grill for one and half hours I checked the roast for doneness. We prefer rare and is 140 degrees using a quality meat thermometer. Cooking anything outside takes a little more time if it’s cold out. It took more like an hour and 45 minutes before it was where I wanted it.

Wrap in aluminum foil when done and let it sit out for 15 minutes before serving. For me the lamb roast came across like a lean prime rib. My wife really liked it, but felt it had just a tad bit of a gamey taste. I didn’t get that impression.

Will I be cooking lamb again? You bet!

Enjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say, “Know your fire!”

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