This year I made roasted leg of lamb for Thanksgiving dinner. It was super tasty and we found many delicious leftovers, like gyros, for the slices of lamb. However, I was left with a leg of lamb bone with quite a bit of meat on it which I wanted to use.
My family would typically take this bone and simmer it in tomato sauce for many hours to remove the tasty bits. Then this sauce would be combined with either cooked pasta or uncooked green beans would be added and simmered until tender. The latter was always a favorite of my grandfather Tsetslilas and it was a weekend dish which my grandmother would make with lamb shank, shoulder or stew meat. The key was using whatever cheap cut she could get her hands on. I remember eating this with crust bread so as to scoop and soak up the dregs of the tomato/lamb fat juices from the plate after all the bits of meat and green beans had been eaten. Our bowls were practically clean when we finished using the bread to mop up the tasty juices
Unfortunately, no one in my nuclear family likes this dish and my extended family who remembers it lives 1200 miles away. So I need a different option for using my leftover lamb leg bone. Enter my Instant Pot.
I learned from my Coombs grandmother the magical powers of pressure cookers for removing and tenderizing meat left on bones. Every fall she’d stuff her old school pressure cooker full of vension bits to start the mincemeat making process. In went bones, out came SUPER tender juicy pulverized meat bits.
So I dumped the leg of lamb bone and enough water to cover it into the Instant Pot and set it on pressure cook. After a pressure cooking cycle 90% of the meat was off the bone or could be easily pulled off. Next I removed the bone and cartilage from pot removing any remaining meat attached and added vegetable scrap bits, a sprig of rosemary and a bit more water. Then I set it on slow cook for 4 hours while I did some baking.
The final product was a yummy lamb broth from which I can make a lovely soup. I’m not sure what else I’ll be adding. It will probably be some other vegetables like zucchini, diced tomato and maybe cannelli beans if I want a lamb-based riff on minestrone. Another option, is to just add lentils if I want to keep it super simple.