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07 April 2011

Weeknight lamb kebabs

So it turns out that if you walk into your local butcher, and ask for 2 lbs of boneless leg of lamb, they say, "Sorry, the smallest cut of leg of lamb that we sell is half a leg. That's 4 lb." So after making lamb steaks, we still had some lamb left over. So we have some lamb to eat. On a weeknight.

What's a quick way to prepare some lamb? How about this for 5 minutes of Tuesday morning prep cooking?
1 lb boneless leg of lamb
½ cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
2 tbsp chopped rosemary
2 tbsp chopped thyme
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp cayenne
olive oil

Trim the lamb of extraneous fat and gristle. Chop the lamb into nice bite-size chunks.

Combine the lemon juice, sugar, water, rosemary and thyme (conveniently removed from the garden moments before), red pepper flakes and cayenne in a ziploc bag. Toss in the lamb chunks. Marinate in the fridge, and go to work.

When you get home, fire up the grill. Soak some wood skewers in water while the grill heats up. Meanwhile, make a salad. Steam some rice. Whatever.

Shortly before the grill is ready, skewer the lamb, leaving space between each chunk.

Marinated lamb

Don't do that wacky thing from the 1980s, where people skewered chunks of bell peppers in between chunks of meat. That's retarded. (Confession, I used to do this. Alot.) The bell pepper/onion/mushroom/whatever will cook faster than the meat. Only skewer similar stuff on a skewer together so it will all cook at the same speed.

Lamb kebabs

Brush the skewered lamb with olive oil. Cook over crazy high heat. Turn every couple of minutes.

Lamb kebabs

Lamb is best when cooked medium-rare, so don't over-cook it. Just a couple minutes per side. This is a fast, weeknight dinner.

Lamb kebabs

Remove from the heat. And serve immediately (such small chunks don't need to rest).

Lamb kebabs

You'll know it was properly cooked if it's still pink inside.

Serve with a lovely Mafalda (from Fratelli Perata if you can).

Mafalda - Served with lamb kebabs

How's that for a weeknight dinner. Not. Bad. At all.

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