Lambtastic...

Weekend over and I must say apart from the severe delayed hangover that hit me on Saturday at about 6pm it was a rather fun few days.

Great send off for my homeward bound antipodean buddies on Friday which somehow ended up with us having a fry-up at the Ibis hotel in Reading at 7am on Saturday morning just before getting home and going to bed.

A few hours of sleep and then I just had to get mobile so popped next door to the local for a few ales with my brother from another mother....hair of the dog most definitely did not work so there was only one thing for it and that was to download the brand new football manager 2011 game which I'm sure now will consume most of my time.

In between all this I got a nice DJ booking for new years eve but more importantly we got to eat the Lamb and the Beef that had been in the water bath since Thursday lunchtime.

Friday it was the Lamb that we had and the reaction from my better half after the first mouthful said it all really. The fork went down, the eyes widened and something along the lines of "Oh my god...Oh my god...that is incredible" came out.

It was just so soft, tender and tasty. Easily the best bit of Lamb I've ever tasted and all from one the very cheapest cuts that being the Neck. All in all that cooked for 28 hours at 54.5C. I wasn't sure what to set the water bath at with Lamb but seeing as this temperature is perfect for medium rare Beef I thought I'd keep it at that.

Most of the temperature charts for this method of cooking are from the U.S. and they themselves eat very little Lamb so it's rare that you'll even find a recipe in a book for this type of meat let alone for something so diverse as Sous Vide.

Seeing as Saturday was a write off the Beef brisket got another day in the water bath so in total that was in for almost 60 hours and again is was really soft and tasty. It actually looked well done when I was carving it but the texture was far from that and the constant 54.5C mean't that it kept all the juiciness of a medium rare joint.

Actually turned out to be quite a feast because to accompany it we had Roast Potatoes, Brussel Sprout Gratin, Chipolatas, Bacon bits, Broccoli, Green beans, Parsnip purée, Yorkshire puddings and lashings of wonderfully beefy gravy....yum yum.

Ok well that'as it for now....byeeeeeeeeee