Sometimes when you’re a food photographer you end up with an eight pound leg of lamb staring you down in your refrigerator. Then you photograph said leg of lamb and end up eating more lamb than you’ve ever eaten in your life. This life can be comical. It was all fun and games until I had to figure out how to dispose of the remaining bones. My husband is always on trash duty meaning that he had to strategize to rid us of a femur the size of a small child. When life gives you leg of lamb, you make Greek inspired Lamb Salad. Or at least, I thought that was the best use of it.
This beautiful Greek Salad is tossed with Feta, Pistachios, Pickled Red Onion, and Preserved Lemons. But don’t fret! If you don’t have preserved lemons, there is no rule saying you can’t just slice a lemon up very thinly and eat it in your salad. If you’re out of pickled red onions, just thinly slice a red onion and throw it in. Anything goes here!
If I’m honest, I’ve never ever cooked lamb of any kind. I consider myself more of a plant eater. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve never even tried lamb, but I took this as the perfect opportunity to really taste something for the first time. I went into this with fresh eyes. Lamb is definitely close to beef in texture but much more flavorful. It’s best prepared medium to medium rare, since the meat can be tender in some parts and sinewy in others. If you don’t have lamb, sliced cooked steak would be great as a substitute. Again, anything goes.
As you’ll notice from this Greek-ish salad recipe, I used whole leaves of romaine. It’s more of a knife and fork situation, and the presentation is beautiful this way. If you decide to chop the romaine and dress it, go for it! Just make sure you don’t use all the dressing. It makes quite a bit, so dress sparingly at first and then go with your gut.
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- juice of half a lemon
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 garlic cloves
- 4 tbsp plain greek yogurt
- a pinch of salt
- half of a head of romaine lettuce
- leftover slices of lamb, reheated or cold
- pickled red onion or sliced raw red onion
- half of a preserved lemon, sliced thinly (you could use just regular lemon, sliced thinly. seeds removed)
- ¼ cup crumbled feta cheese
- ¼ cup roughly chopped pistachios
- In a blender add the olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, oregano. garlic, yogurt and a pinch of salt. Blend until emulsified. Alternately, you could just mince the garlic and whisk the ingredients together in a bowl.
- To assemble the salad, tear the romaine leaves off the root end and placing romaine leaves on each plate. Scatter the lamb slices, red onions and preserved lemon slices on the salad. Drizzle the salad with the dressing as needed. Sprinkle feta and pistachios on top of each salad and serve.
Leave a Reply