THE ULTIMATE SOUS VIDE LEG OF LAMB GUIDE

Introduktion

Sous Vide Leg of Lamb Basics

Traditionally-cooked leg of lamb cooks hot from the outside in, and it’s very difficult to gauge exactly what temperature it is from the edge to the center. In order to ensure that the center of the lamb is cooked through and safe to eat, you inevitably have to overcook the outer layers, leading to a dry, stringy texture.

With sous vide cooking, you’re cooking at precisely the temperature you want to serve the meat, which means that by the time you’re done, the lamb is perfectly cooked from edge to edge, with an ultra juicy and tender texture.

Traditional sous vide leg of lamb consists of an easy, two-phase cooking process:

1. Forsegling Sealing the lamb in a plastic bag using either a vacuum sealer or the water displacement method and madlavning den til den ønskede sluttemperatur i et temperaturkontrolleret vandbad.
   1. The temperature of the sous vide bath and the time in which it spends in this bath is what determines the final texture of your lamb.
2. Searing the leg of lamb to develop color, flavor, and textural contrast.

If you’d prefer to introduce new sous vide techniques into your arsenal, you can also use the Anova Precision™ Oven to prepare sous vide leg of lamb. Because of the way we’ve designed the temperature sensors and humidity control, the oven will precisely maintain the cooking temperature you set.

You can choose to bag and cook your lamb in the Precision™ Oven just as you would with a Precision® Cooker, or you can use the oven’s food probe to tell you exactly when the core of your lamb has hit your desired temp.

Just like traditional sous vide, using Sous Vide Mode in the Anova Precision™ Oven typically is a two-stage cooking process: First, bring the leg of lamb to your desired internal temperature, then sear it in the oven to create a flavorful crust.

We tend to prefer bone-in cuts of meat when the bone is easy to work around, as with a prime rib or a juicy roast pork loin. The tastiest bits of meat (read: the fattiest) are typically stuck around the bones.

But leg of lamb is an exception. Not only does the large, irregularly shaped bone make carving neat, against-the-grain slices difficult, it’s also a bit too unwieldy to pick up and gnaw on, no matter how uncouth your table manners. Besides, leg of lamb has enough fatty bits that you don’t need the ones connected to the bone.

Cooking with a deboned leg of lamb offers another advantage: It’s ideal for stuffing and rolling with other ingredients, and, because lamb is so robustly flavored on its own, you don’t have to be shy or subtle about it.

A full boneless leg of lamb is large, weighing around 10 to 12 pounds. It’s too large to fit comfortably in a sous vide bag, so for this, we recommend using half of a deboned lamb leg, which should be in the four- to five-pound range.

Start with a butterflied leg of lamb. It’s easiest to just ask your butcher to butterfly it for you — deboning a leg of lamb is not a simple task unless you have a very sharp boning knife and plenty of experience. Season with salt (and any other spices you’d like) all over the interior surface before rolling it back up tightly.

Next, secure the lamb leg with a few pieces of twine. There’s a trick to neatly tying together a rolled roast like this. Tying from one end to the other can push the meat out of shape as it gets squeezed unevenly. Instead, tie it from the outside toward the center, starting with two pieces of twine tied at either end, then working your way inward, alternating sides with each piece of twine to create a nice, evenly cylindrical shape. This helps the whole thing cook and slice more easily as well.

Temperatur og timing

The doneness of a leg of lamb is by-and-large determined by the maximum internal temperature it reaches during cooking. For instance, so long as the interior does not rise above 134°F (56.7°C), it will never cook beyond medium-rare. With traditional cooking methods, there is a very short window of time during which your meat is perfectly cooked. A minute too long will mean overcooked meat. With sous vide cooking, on the other hand, that window of time is stretched into hours, which means your lamb will be hot and ready to go whenever you’re ready to sear and serve it.

Like a steak, the muscle structure of a leg of lamb resembles a series of long tubes that are filled with juices. The higher the temperature you cook them to, the more juices they squeeze out and the firmer and dryer your lamb will be.

Here’s a rough breakdown of how lamb feels at different degrees of doneness.

Medium-rare (130°F–134°F / 54.4ºC–56.7ºC)

Your lamb is still nice and red, but muscle proteins have begun to tighten and firm up. You lose a bit of juice due to this tightening, but what you lose in juice you gain in tenderness. Medium-rare lamb has a cleaner bite to it: instead of muscle fibrils mushing and slipping past each other, as they do with very rare lamb, they cut more easily between your teeth. This is our favorite temperature range for lamb.

Medium (135°F–144°F / 57.2ºC–62.2ºC)

Your lamb is a rosy pink throughout and has lost about four times more juices than a very rare lamb rack. If you have a very fatty piece of American lamb, we recommend the lower end of this temperature range; it will help fat render more fully, which should keep your lamb nice and juicy.

Medium-well (145°F–154°F / 62.8ºC–67.8ºC)

Your lamb is well on its way to dryness. At this point, you’ve lost nearly six times as much juice as a rare lamb rack and the meat has a distinctly cottony, grainy texture that no amount of excess fat can disguise. If you must have your meat cooked medium-well, make sure to look for a really well-marbled piece of American lamb to ensure juiciness.

Well done (155°F+ / 68.3ºC+)

We get it. Some people like their meat well-done. However, there is no real reason to use a sous vide precision technique if you like your lamb well-done. Just grill or pan-roast until it’s as done as you like it.

Det er rigtigt, at timingen ved sous vide-tilberedning er meget mere tilgivende end med traditionelle teknikker - dit vindue for veltilberedt kød åbner sig fra sekunder eller minutter til timer - men alligevel er det muligt at over- eller undertilberede kød.

Vores generelle tommelfingerregel er, at man skal regne med ca. 15 minutters tilberedningstid pr. halve tomme tykkelse og lægge ca. 10 minutter til for en sikkerheds skyld. Det er tid nok til, at kødet kan opnå termisk ligevægt og blive gennemstegt til samme temperatur som vandbadet. Efter den tid vil kødet ikke miste meget saftighed, men efterhånden som muskelproteinerne nedbrydes, vil det blive noget grødet og blive revet i stykker, når man bider i det, i stedet for at blive revet i stykker.

With leg of lamb, which contains plenty of fat and connective tissue, you can really draw out the cooking time to tenderize those otherwise tough components. Cooking the lamb just until it’s done (around three-and-a-half hours) and you’ll have a meaty (and, depending on the temp, somewhat chewy texture). Increase the time up to 12 hours and you can get an ultra tender result with medium-rare juiciness.

So long as you’re cooking at above 130°F (54ºC), there are no real health risks associated with prolonged sous vide cooking.

We do not recommend cooking leg of lamb below 130°F (54.4ºC), as it needs longer than 2 ½ hours to cook. We also do not recommend sous vide express for leg of lamb, as it does not provide enough time to tenderize the meat.

Traditionel sous vide

How to Cook Sous Vide Leg of Lamb, Step by Step

Trin 1

Attach an Anova Precision® Cooker to a water bath and heat to your desired final doneness temperature or preheat the Anova Precision™ Oven to your desired temperature.

Generously season the interior of the leg of lamb with salt and any spices of your choice. Roll the lamb into a cylinder and tie with butcher’s twine at 1- to 1 ½-inch intervals. Season the exterior.

Trin 2

If vacuum sealing, add to a bag with aromatics like thyme or rosemary sprigs if desired. Seal the bag with a vacuum sealer. If using the Precision™ Oven, vacuum seal if desired and place on a sheet pan.

Trin 3

Drop the bag in the water bath or place the lamb into the oven. Cook according to your desired time and temperature.

Afsluttende trin

Tag svinemørbraden ud af posen eller ovnen, og læg den på en tallerken beklædt med køkkenrulle. Dup den forsigtigt tør på alle sider. Hvis du ikke krydrede før tilberedningen, så krydr generøst med salt og peber.

Trin 1

Place a heavy cast-iron or stainless steel skillet with 1 tablespoon (15ml) of neutral oil over high heat. Heat until the skillet just starts to smoke.

Trin 2

Add the lamb and cook, turning occasionally, until well browned on all sides, about 4 minutes total. Transfer to a cutting board.

Trin 3

Remove the twine, slice, and serve.

Trin 1

Adjust the oven temperature for Air Frying: Turn sous vide mode off and set the oven to 475°F (246°C) with 0% steam using the Top+Rear heating elements.

Trin 2

While the oven is heating, place the leg of lamb on a clean sheet pan. Brush with neutral oil.

Trin 3

When the oven has reached temperature, return the lamb to the middle rack. Air fry until the lamb is well browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board, remove the twine, slice, and serve.

Trin 1

Make sure to have your grill preheated before the lamb is finished cooking sous vide. Light one chimney full of charcoal (about 5 quarts of coal). When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and arrange the coals on one side of the charcoal grate.

Sæt risten på plads, dæk grillen til, og lad den forvarme i 5 minutter. Alternativt kan du indstille halvdelen af brænderne på en gasgrill til den højeste varmeindstilling, lægge låg på og forvarme i 10 minutter. Skrab grillristen ren med en grillskraber, og smør derefter risten med olie ved at holde et oliedyppet viskestykke eller køkkenrulle i en tang og gnide det hen over risten 5-6 gange.

Trin 2

Place the lamb directly over the hot side of the grill, and cook, turning occasionally, until well browned on all sides, about 4 minutes total. If the fire threatens to flare up as the lamb drips fat into it, suffocate the fire by closing the grill lid until the flames die out. Alternatively, transfer the lamb to the cooler side of the grill using a set of long tongs until the flames subside. Do not allow the lamb to get engulfed in flames.

Trin 3

Transfer the cooked lamb to a cutting board, remove the twine, slice, and serve.

A Closer Look at Seasoning Sous Vide Leg of Lamb

Seasoning a leg of lamb prior to vacuum sealing it and then letting it rest in the bag can result in meat that has a firm texture similar to a mildly cured ham. To avoid this texture, it’s best to season and bag lamb immediately before cooking.

Intuitively you may think that adding a flavorful fat like butter or olive oil to the sous vide bag will in turn help create a more flavorful cook, but it turns out that you achieve the opposite goal. The additional fat dilutes flavor. Fat-soluble flavor compounds dissolve in the melted butter or oil and end up going down the drain later. Similarly, flavors extracted from aromatics end up diluted. For best results, place your seasoned lamb rack in a bag with no added fats.

You can, however, add aromatics, like thyme, rosemary, sliced shallots, or garlic cloves to the bag with lamb during cooking. Adding the same aromatics to the pan as you sear will bolster that flavor.

A Closer Look at Resting Sous Vide Leg of Lamb

Traditionally-cooked meat needs to rest before serving, especially when you’re talking about large cuts like leg of lamb. This resting period is to allow time for the temperature gradient within the meat to even out. The cooler center is gently heated by the hotter outer edges, while they in turn lose some of their heat to the outside world. Even temperature is important: it’s what prevents meat from leaking its juices everywhere the moment it’s been sliced open.

Because sous vide techniques cook from edge to edge with more or less perfect evenness, there is no temperature gradient inside. A medium-rare leg of lamb should be 130°F (54.4ºC) from the very center to the outer edge with only the outer surfaces hotter after searing. Thus sous vide lamb can be served immediately after searing. The very minimal resting it needs will happen on the way from the kitchen to the table.

That said, sometimes you want a little bit of breathing room between cooking and serving, in which case it won’t harm your lamb to let it rest for a few minutes while you set the table.

Måltidsforberedelse og make-ahead sous vide

It’s true that given a high enough temperature (130°F / 54.4ºC or higher) and a long enough time period (several hours), the contents of a sealed sous vide bag should be close to sterile, which means that rapid chilling via an ice bath followed by rapid reheating should pose no health risks, but bags are not perfectly airtight and chilling is never quite as fast as you’d like it to be, so we still strongly recommend against it whenever avoidable. It’s also not doing any favors for the quality of your meat to repeatedly chill and reheat.

En lille advarsel: Nedkøl og genopvarm aldrig mad, der er blevet tilberedt eller opbevaret ved en temperatur på under 54,4 °C (130 °F). Disse temperaturer er ikke varme nok til at ødelægge farlige bakterier.

On the other hand, sealed, seasoned, ready-to-cook leg of lamb in sous vide bags in the freezer makes for an easy main dish when entertaining. Allow an extra hour for cooking if starting from frozen lamb.