Lamb Category

This includes seven or eight ribs from the breast. These can be braised, but they're more often marinated and grilled.

This is leaner and more delicately flavored than other ground meats. It's sometimes available as pre-formed lamb patties.

These are usually broiled, grilled, or pan-fried.

Like beef steaks, lamb chops are pieces of meat that are cut small enough to serve as individual portions. They're often grilled, broiled, or pan-fried. The most elegant choices are the lamb rib chop and the lamb loin chop. The lamb sirloin chop and lamb leg chop aren't quite as tender, but they're quite good if you take care not to overcook them. The most economical cuts are the lamb shoulder chop and lamb blade chop. They're chewier than the pricier cuts, but they're more flavorful.

These are tender one-inch cubes that are put on skewers for grilling. The best kabobs are made with meat from the leg.

These are sold either with or without bones. The full leg is too large and unwieldy for many families, so it's often cut into two half leg pieces: the lean shank half and the more tender but more bony sirloin half. Alternatively, you can buy a short leg = 3/4 French style leg, which includes the shank half plus half of the sirloin half, giving you three-quarters of a leg. Legs are usually roasted, but boneless legs of all sizes can be either rolled and tied or butterflied so that they lie flat for grilling or broiling. If a leg of any size has some meat cut away to expose the bone at the end, it's called a Frenched leg. If the bone at the end is simply lopped off, it's called an American leg.

Cut from the leg, these are usually braised, broiled, or grilled. They're available boneless or bone-in

These are the lamb's answer to Porterhouse steaks. They're the most tender chops on the lamb, and they're usually grilled or broiled. They cook best if they're thick. A chop cut from the saddle (incorporating the loin roasts from both sides of the lamb) is called a double loin chop = English chop. Double loin chops include two pieces of tenderloin, two of the eye, and two T-bones, and they're usually formed into a tidy circle. If a single loin chop is boned and rolled, it's called a noisette.

This is a very tender, flavorful, and expensive roast. If you want more servings, you can get a saddle of lamb = double loin roast, which combines the loin roasts from either side of the lamb. If boneless, a loin roast is called a loin roll = boneless loin roast = rolled lamb roast, or a double loin roll = rolled double lamb roast if made from the saddle.

These are usually braised or made into stew.

These exquisite chops are cut from a rack of lamb. They usually contain one rib per chop, but you'll get a thicker and juicier steak with double cut lamb rib chop, which includes two ribs.

When you buy this, you're usually getting the lamb fore shank = lamb foreshank, but sometimes you'll get the lamb hind shank = lamb hindshank. Don't confuse the shank with the shank half lamb leg, which is a bigger and nicer cut. Shanks are fairly lean and if they're braised slowly, the meat pulls apart into delicious, juicy strands. You can also cube the meat for stews or grind it. Lamb shanks can also stand in for veal shanks in osso bucco.

These chops are a bit chewy, but very flavorful. They're usually braised, broiled or grilled. The round bone in them is a cross-section of the arm bone.

This is a tasty roast, but it's very hard to carve with the bone in. To make carving easier, butchers will bone it and sell it as a boneless rolled shoulder, or they'll slice the roast into blade chops and then tie them together as a pre-sliced shoulder roast = pre-carved shoulder roast

These are usually less expensive than loin chops, but almost as tender. It's best to grill or broil them.

The sirloin is just next to the leg, and, in some parts of the country, this roast comes attached to a leg of lamb. This cut makes a tender, if bony, roast, or it can be sliced into sirloin steaks for grilling or broiling

These are cut from the breast and usually trimmed of fat. They're best broiled, barbecued or braised.

These are cubes of meat that are too tough to grill or broil. If cooking slowly in liquid, though, they become wonderfully tender

This elegant roast includes eight ribs, and it's big enough to serve three. If the meat at the tips is cut away to expose the bones, it's called a French rack = Frenched rack. Make sure the butcher cracks the chine (backbone) between the ribs, so that the roast is easy to carve when you take it out of the oven. You can make a double French rack by leaning two French racks against each other, bone tips interlaced. You can also tie two or three French racks together, bone tips up, to form a crown roast of lamb for an elegant meal

This is the upper half of a leg of lamb, and it makes a tender, but bony roast. Many people ask the butcher to bone this cut, then either roll and tie it or butterfly it.