Get your Lamb on

Still on assignment with the cinetrix, south of the Garden of Good and Evil--it goes without saying, spring break in Florida is AWESOME, even if you are in north FLA, at a B&B with  your parents/inlaws.  Whatever your plans for the weekend, or what you think of plans for The Passion in IMAX 3D, we can all agree that lamb is tasty.  Even if you just want a hearty snack, and do not have elaborate plans for rich midday meals on Sunday, do the following: (largely recreated from Steve Railchen's indispensible How to Grill)
1) Squint hard at your grocer and make them mark down those semiboneless legs of lamb they have--is he planning to construct an Onstad-style Lambulance?
2) Make sure you have plenty of real charcoal, (not Kingsford's for the love all all that is  good) and a tinfoil lasagne pan.
3) Buy Kalamatas, garlic, and rosemary (incidentally the name of my incredibly excelent godchild)
4) Cut have someone you trust not to eat them all cut the kalamatas into slivers that look like slivered almonds, scatter them on a plate, and freeze them.
5) Cut garlic into similar shaped slivers.
6) Jab lamb with paring knife, about 3/4" deep -- use chopstick (steal a pair from the miserable sushi station at your  supermarket) to work the olives, garlic, and rosemary leaves into the meat.  Repeat until you have olive, garlic, rosemary worked in at 1/2" intervals over the whole lamb. You can have more than one person do this-- one in charge of garlic, the other olives--ideally young lovers who can avoid jabbing one another with paring knives, and casually brush their lamb-slicked hands, Tom Jones stizz.
7) You can do this the night before, or not-- in either case, it is nice to work a whole plume of rosemary in along the bone.
8) Slather the leg with good olive oil, and cover with oregano.
9) Make a charcoal fire set up for indirect heat  coals on either side, with lasagne pan under to catch drips.
10) Cook until it is done to your liking-- an instant read thermometer helps here, but lamb is much more forgiving than beef, and can use being cooked longer than you might think. Information on cooking temps and times is available but not in Seattles Best Coffee franchises outside of Jacksonville. Look it up.
11) Carve out of sight of guests (lamb is a pain to carve)  and serve with couscous, asparagus, or whatever you got someone to cook while you were putatively "watching the lamb" but actually sitting around in the yard drinking  High Life and listening to preseason baseball.

Comments

[the punisher]

nice recipe. thanks for the tip on the steve railchen grilling book.

i was hoping to catch the passion when hit imax but curiously, it skipped us over.

going to see manufacturing consent in 3-d and sensaround tonight though! sprinkle some brewers yeast on the popcorn, please.

life in a blue state...

[furious]

Loved the recipe and its implicit story. Post more of these.

[the professor]

It's been ten days and I'm still drooling thinking about this particular lamb. Hail the chef! And btw, none of us prepping in the kitchen made penile sculptures OR went to school in Providence.