On the Merits of Costco and Lamb

Janessa and I celebrated our anniversary on Sunday. To mark the occasion, we joined Costco.

I had some business in Liberty Hill on Saturday morning, and Janessa tagged along. It was our 12th anniversary the following day, so it seemed appropriate to join the club. We drove to the Costco in Leander and I ponied up the $60 for that ultimate status symbol - the Costco Gold Membership Card.

The place seemed like a theme park for bargain shoppers, but it also reminded me of an epic saga from a fantasy novel. Giant shopping carts, like war chariots of old, charging through the aisles to battle for savings. Craggy mountains of paper towels, numbering two dozen to the bundle, stood over the plain of bargains. Could I pass without becoming enchanted by the siren song on the price label? No, I could not.

Nor could I pass the weavers’ village, where I acquired a pair of exquisite breeches for $12. A friendly maiden offered slices of fine cheese to all who visited her trading post. I picked up a pound and a half of real Parmigiano Reggiano for another $12.

I was almost light-headed by the heavy aroma of deals by the time we pulled our chariot to the butcher’s stall. There would be a great feast that night.

The meat counter at Costco is really something to behold – prime briskets for about $80 a piece. That’s about the best deal you can find right now. But I passed on a brisket. Instead, I picked up a rack of lamb and a leg of lamb.

Farmers in Fayette County used to raise a lot of sheep. My late grandfather, John J. Fietsam of Schulenburg, raised sheep when I was a little kid. Pop, as we called him, would barbecue “mutton” several times a year. Mutton in the United States officially refers to the meat of older sheep. Lamb meat comes from sheep slaughtered between 12 and 14 months of age. I’m not sure if the meat I ate as a child was lamb or mutton. But I do remember not liking it very much, especially the smell.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate the taste of lamb, almost more so than beef. Unfortunately, not many grocery stores sell lamb today. You can occasionally find overpriced loin chops, shoulder chops or ground lamb. But I rarely see racks of lamb or leg of lamb at local supermarkets.

Some of the local farms such as The Jersey Barnyard outside La Grange sell meat from lambs they raise. I’ve had it and it’s delicious. But they are sold out almost every time I visit.

I think folks need to eat more lamb. I wish there was more of a market for lamb here, both for consumers and producers. As land becomes more and more subdivided in Fayette County, it becomes harder for small acreage landowners to keep an ag exemption for property taxes. Cattle require larger acreage. But you can raise quite a few sheep on a small 10 acre homestead. Plus, if you have ever butchered a deer, then you can butcher a lamb at home.

More importantly, they’re tasty. I cooked the rack of lamb for supper Saturday night. The rack consists of a loin section with about seven or eight rib bone attached plus their meat. You can slice between the bones to make loin chops, but I prefer to cook the rack whole. Saturday night I prepared it using a reverse sear method.

I seasoned it with salt, pepper and garlic powder and smoked it on a Traeger grill at 250 degrees for about an hour. I intended to remove it from the heat when the internal temperature reached 130 degrees. But it cooked faster than I thought and by the time I checked, the internal temp was 150 degrees. I removed it from the grill and turned the heat up to 400. I seared the rack on the meat side for about five minutes. The internal temp then read about 155 degrees. I was aiming for medium, but it turned out medium well. It was still very good. We shared it with some friends and they were impressed.

I find the loin meat to taste very much like beef. You hardly notice a difference until you chew the fat and connective tissue – the lamb flavor is much stronger in those areas. Some people describe the flavor as “gamey,” but I don’t think that’s the right word.

Sunday I barbecued the leg of lamb. It came de-boned and wrapped in butcher’s twine. I would have rather purchased one with the bone intact, but Costco didn’t have one. I left it in the twine and seasoned it the same way as the rack – salt, pepper and garlic powder. But this time I stuffed some sprigs of rosemary under the twine. I again smoked it on a Traeger using post oak pellets, but for this larger cut of meat, I was aiming for an internal temperature of around 200 degrees. I smoked it much like I would smoke a brisket. I started the smoker off at 225 degrees and gradually increased it to 275 degrees throughout the process.

I was surprised at how long it took to finish – about eight hours. I put it in foil when it got to 175 degrees and then pulled it from the pit at about 200 degrees. The finished product reminded me a lot of those “mutton” barbecues of my youth. But it tasted way better than what I remember – succulent, like pork, but with a distinct flavor. We ate it sort of Greek-style. I baked some fresh pita bread and made a batch of tzatziki, a Greek yogurt-based sauce with cucumber, onion, lemon, dill and mint. We ate the lamb on the Pita flatbreads with sliced onion and tomato with tzatziki drizzled on top. This week we used the leftovers in a stew with potatoes and carrots.

If you decide to barbecue a large cut of lamb, low and slow is the key – low temperatures and long cooking times.

I encourage everyone to find some lamb and give it a try. Do any of you have lamb recipes? Send them to me at andy@fayettecountyrecord. com. I’d love to give them a try.