I was raised vegetarian and married into Yorkshire, and I've tried to expand my palate over the years. Lamb is the one thing that just utterly defeats me. I can get through most roast dinners by slathering the meat in various sauces, and while I don't really see the attraction, I can survive family meals. But lamb is unlike any vegetarian food in that it just sticks around like bubblegum. I'm chewing and chewing and hoping it'll dissolve and it never goes anywhere, so you're left having to just force this stuff down against your gag reflex. Genuinely horrifying every time I've tried it. My wife claims slower cooked stuff like lamb shank is different but I'm completely off it at this point.
I was raised vegetarian too and have that gag reflex, so bad.
I cannot work that feeling out - there's no way I can get used to it.
Meat fat texture == my food antithesis.
Lamb I just cannot. That feeling, so soft and ... something totally foreign - it "shouldn't be in my mouth" feeling. Both times I tried it's just, no thanks. edit The flavor is too strong and not something I like at all either edit
I near projectile vomit fat. I cut off all I see. If it's bacon fat that's totally cooked, maybe. If it's soft, it's coming off.
Once at a wedding I caught a large piece of steak fat, it coming up immediately & I stealthed it into my napkin; like jerry & the mutton.
I hoped no one had noticed but the groom saw. Just bad timing he glanced right at the same time.
I had reserved for a well done steak. It came to me full rare.
I just rolled with it to not fuss - I'd nearly rather not eating. I dissected that steak for fat like a surgeon.
Tuna, salmon I cannot force myself to eat.
Silverside|rump roast yuck.
I've come to accept my mouth has uncompromising takes of tastes & textures. Why fight it.
My dog (including past dogs) never mind! So there's that.
The textures are one thing, the taste is definitely also difficult. I suspect for many vegetarians you're raised with less umami - the taste highlights for me were sweet things like onions, garlic, tomatoes, salty things like cheese, or just really nicely spiced food like Indian/Mexican etc. Being presented with even the world's finest cut of meat, cooked to perfection by the greatest chef in the world, isn't going to chime with that upbringing. This is part of the reason I've been so disappointed with the rise of vegan menus at the expense of vegetarian stuff in restaurants. You get meat replacement items which are for late converts or part-timers who still crave meat taste, or bland stuff for lifestyle vegans, and meanwhile everyone's dropped the cheese dishes.
Meat tenderness varies by animal, cut, and prep method. Generally the 'working muscles' like legs tend to be the toughest and have the most connective tissue. However, in long-duration low-temp cooking methods the connective tissue breaks down and provides great flavor and mouth-feel.
If you're in a hurry, the lamb rack is great. For pretty much any other cut, you want a minimum two hour cook. A pressure cooker helps but it's not magic. The main thing is that you can't just put it in for X minutes and call it done, no matter what the recipe says. Just keep cooking until you achieve fork-tenderness.
If you struggle with the flavor of lamb, avoid the fat, which has most of the "lambyness". But then you might as well just eat something else.
It isn't really the flavour of lamb (I will smother it in any and all condiments available to me), it's that it doesn't turn to liquid as I chew it, and slowly all the actual tasty stuff dissolves away and you're left having to force yourself to swallow. I understand that you and others in this thread will say it's been cooked incorrectly, but we seem as a nation committed to having it this way. My point is that it's not always easy to demand vegetarian options in every social setting, so I've had to train myself to force it down.
With apologies to your spouse, but if you wanted to find out why people enjoy any kind of food, Yorkshire cuisine is probably not your best option. For mutton (and lamb) I recommend trying out a Moroccan restaurant, or Lebanese maybe (and I don't mean a kebab shop!).
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the rich food heritage of other cultures both within and without the UK, and their use of esoteric things like flavours and spices. But Sunday roast is what it is.
Er, what? Yorkshire is famous for its lamb. Especially the Dales. And seafood - Yorkshire has some of the most bountiful coastline in the UK (e.g. crab).
> My wife claims slower cooked stuff like lamb shank is different but I'm completely off it at this point.
Oh missing out I reckon, slow cooked lamb shanks or slow oven roast with heaps of rosemary and garlic is divine, maybe a drizzle of red wine/stock.
Personally I go with about 3 hours at 150 degs Celcius (depending on size) with foil covering the baking pan, and then it should fall off the bone when you look at it. Getting crispy spuds in there is a bit trickier, either a separate dish and drain some of the lamb fat in there, or take the foil off an hour or so before and get the spuds in there.
You represent a conundrum for me. I'd love to connect with somebody like you and try out dozens of different approaches. But, of course, that wouldn't be a very nice thing to do.
There's always the promise that there are some handful of techniques that would produce results that you actually like. But how do you ask somebody to suffer through the misery of all the techniques that don't in the hope of finding the treasures?
I love your attitude, but I think your mental model is wrong. I think many people don't like lamb (and can't stand mutton) simply because of the way it tastes. My one-time fiancee grew up on a (meat) sheep farm in Manitoba. With her, I've toured sheep stations in Australia and New Zealand. I've been offered and eaten it as a local specialty all around the world---I just don't like the flavor.
Sure, a preparation can make it taste less like lamb, but (for me) I don't think it can make it taste good. I'll always prefer beef. The closest I've come to liking it is Gyro meat, and that's usually half beef, and even then, I'm sure I'd like it more without the lamb. Just last month I had to force myself to finish some homemade golubki (cabbage rolls) made with half lamb and half pork that I otherwise would have found fantastic.
One theory is that it depends on what you grew up with, but I don't think that's true either. I grew up eating primarily (deer) venison, and never came to like it either. Later in life I've tried a whole lot of other big game meats, and haven't really liked them either. The major exception was (black) bear, which I first had as an adult and thought would be terrible, but it turned out to be incredibly delicious. Whale can be pretty good too, but I don't feel right eating it.
I personally think the correct theory is that some people are sensitive to the flavors of different proteins, and that those who are most sensitive are least likely to like lamb. A competing theory is that everyone tastes it but some simply like that flavor. It would be interesting to arrange a dilution test to see which of these hypotheses is closer to true. I don't think the "just haven't had it prepared right" hypothesis has much going for it.
There definitely are meat dishes I enjoy, and I feel like I've given it a good try, not just to survive domineering aunts-in-law. When my wife and I went on our honeymoon I threw myself in at the deep end, had some wonderful veal with a red wine sauce that was spectacular. And I'm sure there are lamb dishes I could come around to (if and only if you promise the lamb liquifies completely as I chew it). We're never forced to cook the same sauce for two different proteins at dinner time (and we're not raising our kids vegetarian, except during the brief periods where they think about it and protest). The issue is I can't conjure up these dishes on major religious holidays.
