Lamb Breast

Anyone in here ever smoked lamb breast? I tried it about a year ago and it came out great, but I honestly can't remember what I did or how long I smoked it...

I'm thinking about trying it rubbed with my homemade habanero jelly. I figure mint jelly is popular to serve with lamb, so the sweetness of the habanero should bring out the rich lamb flavor, and the habanero will give it that little extra kick that I love. Any thoughts or experiences to share?
 
I don't know what a lamb breast is unless your talking the udder, but I'm guessing you are talking brisket. If that's the case, I would do it up low and slow just like beef brisket. Put a good rub on it. Wrap in plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 24 hours. Pull it from the fridge, fire up the smoker and when the meat is around room temp, throw it in the smoker. Depending on the size of the brisket and I'm betting they are at least a 3rd the size of an average beef brisket or less, I'm guessing a minimum of 6 hours in the smoker. I have never liked the mint on lamb but much prefer a mustard style...like a jalapeno/mustard. If you do it, we'd love to see pics and hear about the results.

Cheers, TB.
 
It's actually more like ribs. When I did them before, I believe I pretty much smoked them the same way I do ribs. They have a lot of fat on them, but it's more that soft fat that breaks down really well... if I remember correctly. I'm gonna go ahead and try the habanero jelly on at least one of the racks and see how that goes. I'll take some "before" pics here in a bit before I throw them on the smoker.

I'm also trying my hand at smoking a duck, and doing a pork crown roast as well.
 
Dude...duck is the food of kings. I roasted a duck breast for Thanksgiving and made confit with the legs and thighs. As for the smoker...that is one bird I have not smoked. I personally like a good deal of smoke flavor but with duck I would probably use apple or alder to not cover up the duck flavor and overpower it. Duck in the smoker....I might have to go buy another duck.

Cheers, TB.
 
We'll know soon enough. I'm actually smoking all this stuff to take up to my parents for Christmas...



But I may have to sample it when it's done. :D
 
Alright, so there's more than just the lamb breast on Smokenstein, but I figured this is the more appropriate thread. For the lamb breast, I coated it with my wife's homemade habanero jelly (tried this on pork ribs and it worked well, and I think the sweetness should work with lamb). I also coated the duck with habanero jelly, and stuck half an orange and some garlic inside the cavity of the duck. I've never cooked duck before, let alone smoke it, so we'll see what happens. Here's the before pics of that...

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For the pork crown roast, I just dusted it with Zatarrain's creole seasoning. Didn't feel like mixing up a batch of my own rub since it was so late. I also wrapped little pieces of foil around the tips of the bones to keep them from turning black, so hopefully that will help the curb appeal when it's served (although it's for my family, who really don't care what it looks like as long as it tastes good!).

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We also bought some salmon at the store today, and my neighbor wanted me to throw some that a friend of his brought back from Alaska... just 3 weeks ago, this neighbor had never eaten salmon before. Now this is the 3rd time I'm smoking his salmon for him so he can make my salmon dip recipe to show off at Christmas. I rubbed some garlic on the salmon first (I've never done this before, but got inspired... hope it doesn't over-power the fish), poured butter over it, then dusted it with the creole seasoning and topped it off with dill. Then squeezed some fresh lemon on it and as you can see, stuck the lemon remains in the middle of the salmon:

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Here's everything on Smokenstein:

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Results to follow... Also, on the lamb, I braised it on the hot side for about 30 minutes first, so that's why it looks like it's been cooking a lot longer than the other meats.
 
BTW, here's Smokenstein smoking (can't see a lot of smoke, but trust me, it's there!):

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And this is a pic I took of Smokenstein smoking without the flash on. I just thought it looked kinda cool:

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That looks gorgeous but....you might find the salmon will take on some of the other meat flavors which might not be a good thing. Sample the salmon and let us know how that turns out.

Cheers, TB.
 
Don't have the pics yet, but the results... from what I can tell... were pretty good. The salmon was excellent. I tore off a piece of the one I made for my neighbor as a "fee/quality control" type of thing, and it was one of the best salmons I've smoked... and I don't think I've ever smoked any bad ones (I think that's attributed to the fish... not the cook). The duck looks beautiful, but I was afraid to cut into it because it won't actually get eaten until Thursday and I didn't want to risk drying it out or anything by cutting it open. The lamb breast was superb. The way it is cut, there's a good quarter to half inch fat cap there on top, then the meat, then the rib bone. The fat by itself tasted great, and the meat was delicious. I pulled it off after about 3-4 hours and it was still more of a medium rare-meduim, so it could use more cooking time (which will happen when we finish it off on Thursday), but it was great with some pink in there and wasn't tough at all like some undercooked smoked meats could be. And the crown roast was pulled off at about 3AM this morning so I wasn't in any mood to taste it (after freezing my half asleep ass off pulling it from Smokenstein), and hence didn't get pictures of it before my wife wrapped it in foil early this morning. So I'll either unwrap the crown and take a pic, or just post the pics of the other stuff soon.

Overall though, I think the experiment was a success, but I really won't know for sure until after Christmas dinner.
 
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