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tmiles 14 years, 6 months ago.
Tmiles, up here on the north shore area the Market Basket stores are advertiseing boneless American leg of lamb for $2.99 a lb. and the Astralian for $3.99 I wish lamb had a longer shelf life in the freezer. The lobster prices are holding strong boat price for chicks are 5 and a half, but the bargain are the 3 pounders at $7.00 a pound, not bad. Good news is the flats are reopening and clams will be plentyfull in a short time, just have to wait untill the wholesalers replenish their freezer stores. My quess the diggers are going to be able to get well over $2.00 a pound untill things shake out. Chow Jim
My local Price Chopper is selling cryopac boneless leg of lamb. It is not tied, and is rather flat, perhaps 2 inches thick, and in the 2 pound range. I bought one to grill. Before grilling, I cut it into 3 pieces along natural lines between muscle groups. It was excellent, and I wondered if one of the parts was the rump that is the subject of this thread. I also wonder if it was, perhaps, a boneless FRONT leg. In any case, it was excellent.
BTW lamb prices are down. The boneless leg was 3.99/lb, and some nice loin chops were $5.99. These were both American lamb. They also had a nice display of Australian racks, beautifully sealed in plastic. The racks were a little more than the American lamb, but they looked to be of restaurant quality. With prices down, Price Chopper, at least, is giving back the shelf space that went away when lamb chops went over $10 per lb. It has been some time since loin chops costed less than lobster around here, but today, chix lobster (1 to 1.25 lbs) are $6.99, a buck more than the chops.
Lamb is very popular with the Irish as well as Middle Easterners, I don’t know how much else they agree on though. Money I guess.
I read somewhere once that about 80% of all the lamb eaten in the US is consumed along the coast between Washington, DC and Boston Ma. That may be because this is such an ethnically diverse area – in any case, we always have chops and legs (and sometimes ground lamb) available in our local butcher shops and super markets. I’m going to ask a local butcher about that lamb rump- sounds interesting.
Cheers, John
V960,
My father lived in Hawarden, Iowa. They have a large lamb processing plant there. It used to bug him no end that he could not buy lamb in any of the grocery stores.
The availability of lamb is apparently determined by the ethnic background of the populace.
Cakes
I’ll have to ask our friend who cuts our lamb about it. He is Iranian and is very gifted w/ a knife. He can have four lambs ready for wrapping in just about a hour. His fee is the parts no one else wants. Testicles, heads, neck bones and the like.
In piedmont NC lamb or mutton almost impossible to find. The grocery stores carry just a few items and want a mint for it. I have talked w/ the meat managers and all of the say it ends up going to the shelters for free. They can’t discount it they way they used to due to corporate policy.
I’ve never seen the rump for sale. My butcher shop only has leg, tip meat for kabobs, shank, stew and ground lamb, and chops. I’ll have to ask for the rump the next time I’m there. It’s hard to find mutton also, guess nobody in the northeast eats it. Chow Jim
I have raised and written about sheep for many years, but I learned something when I read "Love This Lamb" on pg 141 of the July Gourmet Magazine. Lamb is not an easy meat to carve. A leg has that bone, and a boneless leg has those cross grains. "The rump, or top-round lamb roast, as it is called here in the states, is a rather large muscle cut from above the shank, but below the sirloin". Because it is a single muscle there is no cross grain, and it is easy to carve.
Because sheep are small, the cut is small. The story says to buy 2 if you are serving 8 people.
I don’t know what it costs, but I’d be surprised if it isn’t priced with the other top cuts of lamb, plus a premium for special order. It looks like a good idea when you want to serve something special.
Lamb Rump
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