Lamb jus
Howdy folks. Firstly an apology, I have been extremely busy recently, and consequently have found it really difficult to find time to cook the dishes I had planned let alone blog the results. This time of year is probably the most hectic in my profession and to be honest with you it has been verging on the ridiculous this year. I have simply had no time to do anything, and have even found I spend most of my weekends resting and recovering from the week before. It’s crazy and certainly goes against what I consider to be a good work life balance, but sometimes these things need to be done. Thankfully the worst is over now, so I can get cracking on with what I enjoy, and that is cooking.
I have decided to cook the two lamb dishes in the book simultaneously as they share a large number of the ingredients and cooking methods. Also, as is the case with most of the ‘mains’ in the book, each dish consists of a number of components which can be prepared individually and stored until ready to use for the final dish. I figured that to break down the common components into individual posts will give you a better understanding of the work that is required for some of these dishes. I find you tend to summarise things so much in the individual posts that some of the technicalities/difficulties of the individual components get lost.
Hence this post.
In both the lamb dishes, lamb jus is required and I figured it would be a good idea to have a separate entry for this similar to the individual posts on chicken and veal stocks. It is essentially the same thing really and prepared in a similar manner.
I had a rack of lamb ribs in the freezer for a while that were calling out to be used and once defrosted I drizzled some olive oil over them and roasted these for a couple of hours till golden. Whilst these were roasting I whipped out the stock pot and began to gently fry some carrots, onion, garlic and celery in some olive oil until softened.
Gently frying the base veggies
Once done, I then added some white wine and reduced down to virtually nothing before adding some tomato paste and chicken and veal stock.
Second reduction of wine and tomato paste
By now the ribs have finished roasting.
Roasted lamb ribs
I drained these of excess oil and then added these to the pot. This was then brought to the simmer and kept like this for a good couple of hours.
Left to simmer
Once it had simmered for the required time I took it off the heat and let it cool down. I have to say that at this stage the entire house smelt wonderful. It was a real lamby smell, but in such a good way. It wasn’t overpowering at all, it just smelt wonderful. It is really hard to describe, but I could already tell this was going to make one hell-of-a good sauce for the dishes. I took out the bones and strained out the veggies and what I was left with was a teeny tiny cup of probably the best lamb jus I have ever made in my life.
Lamb jus
I had to taste it, and dear readers I can confirm it was simply divine. It was so silky smooth and incredibly lamby in flavour that I reckon now I will need to stock up on lamb ribs and do this more often. In fact, for normal lamb roasts this would be a sure winner and given you could do this well in advance and freeze it, it would take a lot of the agro out of a roast dinner. After all a roast is nothing without a good gravy. This is a guaranteed sure fire winner and I can’t wait to taste it in combination with the rest of the dish.
Oh by the way, as I am sure you know, lamb is incredibly fatty and you can already see the fat rising to the surface in the photo above. After freezing, this is easy to remove as it forms a hard disc on top of the jus which you can simply lift off and discard leaving the good stuff behind. Top tip from yours truly.
Lamb jus… Done!
Next up: Navarin of lamb with buttered vegetables, celeriac puree and thyme jus
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