Lamb

Baby turnips and the season's first onions are some of the BA Test Kitchen's favorite spring ingredients.

Ask for the smallest lamb your butcher has (like those from New Zealand), or buy a 3 1/2-4-pound piece of a leg.

The lamb roasts on a bed of thyme to infuse the meat.

Brining the lamb before it is slowly braised results in flavorful meat.

Get a taste of North Africa with this lamb slow-cooked with stewed apricots, tomatoes, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon. To complete the Moroccan theme, serve the winter stew atop couscous. Alternatively, pair it with crusty bread for a heartier meal. Just be sure to save some leftovers, as the meat will be even tastier the following day.

Rosemary and garlic are often used to season lamb, but rarely are they part of such a complex taste arrangement as this recipe produces. The powerful duo is sprinkled on lamb chops that are quickly broiled. Garlic also flavors a hearty side of sautéed chard, while additional rosemary is simmered in balsamic vinegar, creating a beautiful, aromatic syrup to drizzle over the chops and greens. With only 35 minutes of prep time, this recipe is perfect any night of the week.

Looking for a spectacular dish to wow friends and family? Give them some leg. Have your butcher butterfly the leg of lamb, and use metal skewers to secure any loose meat as it cooks. If you find yourself with leftovers, pair them with toasted pita and hummus.

Charmoula, an aromatic Middle Eastern herb and garlic sauce, combines mint, parsley, sweet smoked paprika, cilantro, and cumin. It comes together in minutes in the food processor, and the lamb can marinate all day.

This is the stew that made such an impression on the final episode of the first season of Top Chef Masters. Each of us had been asked to create a meal that would be an autobiography told through the dishes we would present to the judges. I immediately thought of baeckeoffe ("baker's oven"). The name refers back to the time when bakers used wood-fired ovens. After the bread was done, this dish would be baked long and slow in the falling temperatures of the cooling oven. Since everyone in town would see the baker every day for the family's daily loaf, each would often bring a casserole to be baked in the oven. It was traditional, particularly on Mondays, when the women went to the river to do their laundry. They would have marinated their meats and vegetables overnight, dropped their casseroles off in the morning on their way, and then picked them up—plus a loaf of bread—on their way home. Even though my father was not the bread baker and had a modern, gasfired oven, people still took their casseroles to him. They liked to drop in because he always had some joke or story to tell. Before the village baker also invested in a modern oven and was still using wood, when my father turned over a fresh loaf of bread to give it the traditional blessing, he would sometimes see pieces of charcoal embedded in the crust. That would send my dad wild, muttering that "he [the baker] did not thoroughly clean his oven!" I make this dish often, both at home and at the restaurant. But these days we tend to increase the vegetables and use less meat, and sometimes we use only vegetables and leave out the meat entirely. While there is never a mushroom in the classic recipe, you can add them or make a vegetarian version with mushrooms and a rich vegetable stock. I've also made this stew as the centerpiece for Christmas dinner, adding plenty of sliced black truffles. The classic dish uses a mix of meats including a pig's foot, which gives a rich, gelatinous texture to the stew. You may be able to special-order a pig's foot. Ask the butcher to slice it crosswise into three pieces. But even at the restaurant I sometimes have trouble ordering them, and your stew will still be delicious without one. You can also use just one or two kinds of meat instead of all three.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

A rack is one of the most luxurious cuts from the lamb and makes a dramatic roast. Count on two ribs per person (four servings per rack) if you're using American lamb and four ribs per serving if you're using New Zealand or Australian lamb. When carving, alternate sides as you serve the ribs so one person isn't stuck with the "seconds," the ribs from the shoulder end of the rack.
If you have a double rack of lamb, split it. This removes the chine bone automatically. If you have a single rack, make sure the butcher trims off the chine bone so you can carve the rack easily. French the rack and remove the layer of fat that covers half of the rack on the shoulder end. This helps the meat to cook evenly. You will save time in the kitchen if your butcher has frenched the ribs for you. But, if the rack isn't frenched, don't skip the step. A frenched rack is a stunning sight on the dinner table.

A rack of lamb, being a red meat, is roasted to a lower internal temperature than chicken, veal, or pork, meaning that it releases little in the way of juices during the roasting process. To supplement the jus, spread the roasting pan with the trimmings from the rack (with the fat trimmed off) or a pound or so of lamb stew meat cut into small pieces and brown these in a hot oven before setting the rack on top. The flavor of the jus can also be accentuated by caramelizing the juices once or more after deglazing as described above for the saddle of lamb.

Noah: We're always looking for alternatives to pork at Mile End, and this dry-cured lamb breast was an amazing meat discovery for me. You can use lamb bacon in pretty much any dish you'd use standard bacon or pancetta for: Italian peasant soups, potato salads, meat braises, pasta dishes, whatever. We finish our lamb bacon in a smoker, though at home I've cooked it in the oven and gotten great results; it just has a milder flavor. You can store the bacon in the fridge for many weeks.

When Pete and I tried this in London, we were amazed. It's probably what made us decide to do a whole chapter in clinching. Lamb that doesn't flare up, leaving a slick black residue, is the Holy Grail of every lamb griller. You can cook these chops quickly, with no flame, to produce a beautiful crust and, on the inside, á point (perfect) lamb. For the most part I avoid clinching with bone-in pieces, but here the bone doesn't affect the cooking at all—it's essentially just a way of holding the two loin sections together, which makes for a different presentation from a typical lamb chop. You'll need to get these chops from a specialty butcher. This cut—two sections of loin joined by a bone—is called a Barnsley chop in England and an English chop among old-time American butchers.

I made these one night at a friend's house. He was craving mashed potatoes to go along with the lamb chops I was making, and, having no potatoes to peel, boil, and mash, I went with carrots instead. The sweet, rich mixture that resulted benefitted gloriously from a touch of creamy, pungent gorgonzola, making the perfect bed for the oil-and-herb-marinated lamb chops.
Note: Have your butcher cut the lamb chops into individual "lollipops" for you.

Briefly blanching whole onions makes them easy to separate and fill.

Lamb is a classic at Easter, particularly leg of lamb. Increasingly, though, lamb legs are sold boned, or even better, boned and butterflied, which makes them ideal for summer grilling. But for Easter, a boneless lamb leg (readily available at the big-box stores) becomes something irresistible to stuff, and because there's no bone, it's a dream to carve. Here, we season the meat all over with a garlicky, lemon- and oregano-scented paste, then spread a flavorful, wilted-arugula filling over the lamb and roll it up. Don't be dismayed by the ragtag appearance of the uncooked roast. Just tie it securely and you will be amazed at how delicious it looks when it comes out of the oven. The vegetables surrounding the lamb not only absorb some of the lamb juices but also create a complete and nutritious meal in a roasting pan. Editor's Note: This recipe is part of Gourmet's Modern Menu for Easter. Menu also includes Frisée, Radicchio, and Fennel Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette; and Lemon Pudding with Strawberries and Meringue Cigars.

This one honors our longtime barbecue buddy, the late Bob Carruthers, of New South Wales. We met Bob during his first trip to Lynchburg, Tennessee, to serve as an international judge at the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue. From then on he played a significant role in introducing Australian barbecue to Americans and American barbecue to Australians. His footprints on The Jack will endure, as will many good memories of the fun and enthusiasm he brought to the event. For this one we recommend Australian lamb ribs, and the whiskey has to be Jack Daniel's. Life is sweet. Life is sour. Life goes on.

Joellyn Sullivan is co-proprietor of the famous Silky O'Sullivan's on Beale Street in Memphis, where pizza, oysters, barbecue sandwiches, Cajun sandwiches, po' boys, barbecue ribs, and other foods are consumed indoors and outdoors to the tunes of guest musicians in a yearlong St. Patrick's Day scene. Her husband and co-proprietor, Silky, is an international barbecue rock star. They are longtime friends and Barbecue Royalty. Joellyn was kind enough to share this recipe with us, a variation on the recipe she gave to Chef Paul for leg of lamb at the World Cup Barbecue Championship years ago in Lisdoonvarna, Ireland, where she took home the blue ribbon for lamb in 1989.