I was recently asked to participate in a recipe grilling contest that featured lamb as the centerpiece. I’ve had lamb before, but had never prepared it myself so I welcomed the challenge. Chris and I were sent a boneless leg of lamb from a local Oregon farm, and I immediately knew what I wanted to do with it.
It’s cherry season in the Pacific Northwest (today’s actually National Rainier Cherry Day!), and I just knew that coming up with some sort of cherry sauce would be the way to go, so that’s what I did. To be more specific, we grilled it with a merlot sauce and finished it with a cherry glaze.
Here’s how you can do that with a boneless leg of lamb.
Merlot Sauce
- 1 bottle of merlot (really, a number of red wines will do here, but we picked merlot)
- 1 1/2 cups of balsamic vinegar (I used a mix of a classic balsamic and a lavender-infused balsamic)
- 1/2 small onion (1 shallot would work as well)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic
- salt and pepper
Cherry Glaze
- 2 cups merlot (or whichever wine you chose for the wine sauce)
- 2 cups fresh cherries (I used 1 cup of bing cherries and 1 cup of Rainier cherries)
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1/2 small onion (or 1 shallot), chopped
- 4 chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon butter
- optional: brown sugar
- salt and pepper
Instructions
We (well, Chris) had to unwrap, unroll, and downsize the lamb in order to fit it on our grill, and we ended up with two big pieces that were grilled separately. Before grilling, season the meat with salt and pepper and start the merlot sauce, as this will be used throughout the grilling process.
To cook the merlot sauce, mix all ingredients together in a sauce pan over medium-high heat and simmer down (simma’ down now!) until for about 20-25 minutes. This should reduce the down to a little under one cup of liquid. Set aside once reduced, and start grilling the meat.
While the meat cooks, pour the sauce (or baste it) over the lamb throughout the cooking process.
Be careful for flames, but don’t worry about a little extra smoky flavor on the lamb — it pairs really nicely with the cherry and merlot flavors!
Next, move onto to the cherry glaze. I should also add that it’s really helpful to have two people on this project, so that one (me!) can handle the sauces over the stove and someone else (Chris!) can watch the grill outside.
To make the cherry glaze, add the wine, cherries, garlic and onion in a saucepan over high heat and reduce until most of the liquid cooks out. This should take about 10-15 minutes.
Next, add the chicken stock, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer until this also cooks down and the sauce thickens (about another 10 minutes or so). Once the sauce has thickened, add the butter and melt that into the sauce. Trust me. This is a really important part. Not because it won’t work without it, but because it’s butter. And that’s always important.
By the time the cherry glaze is done, the lamb should be just about ready to pull off the grill. If not, just keep the cherries warm by reducing the heat way down or covering them. The lamb should be cooked to an internal temperature of 135 degrees for medium rare. Keep in mind that the meat will continue cooking just a bit once it’s off the grill and before it’s cut into, so you can pull the meat off the grill anytime between 130-135 so long as you let it rest for a few minutes.
Once the lamb is sliced and plated, drizzle a little more of the merlot sauce over it, then top with the cherry glaze. We served ours with a side of mashed cauliflower and a glass of merlot to pair with all the wine in the sauce. Even Kona the Dog wanted in on this!
Disclosure: The deliciously tender and juicy lamb was provided as a part of the O-LAMB-pic grilling recipe contest by the American Lamb Board. All opinions are my own. Recipe was inspired by and modified from a number of recipes found online, including food.com and myrecipes.com.
