Cooking time: 2 hours | 5 persons
If you are looking for an amazing dish using Icelandic lamb created by some of Iceland´s best chefs look no further. The Icelandic Culinary Team competes among the best chefs and is ranked third in the world after the Olympics 2024. The team has many roles: coaching champions of the industry, creating role models for young people and, last but not least, working on developing and improving Icelandic cuisine and food culture for locals and our visitors to enjoy, with respect for both our history and the ingredients. One of the highlights of the teams menus is our PDO-certified Icelandic Lamb.
The lamb course
Competition on the highest level of gastronomy requires a lot of hard work and skill, the lamb dish has numerous details, some more complex than others and we chose to portray the main parts of the recipes in detail. The recipe includes: Pan fried Lamb filet, crispy skin, buckwheat and ramson capers, Gnocchi potato filled with pulled lamb, lamb jus.
Served with the following in the competition: Paté choux pastry filled with fried mushrooms, Feykir cheese foam. Whey glazed carrot, mornay sauce, lemon thyme. Ragout of chanterelles, green peas and kohlrabi.
Gnocchi Potato filled with pulled lamb
600g Gnocchi dough (see below)
1 piece Lamb shoulder
1l chicken stock
100g Mustard seeds
2 tsb Chives
½ Lemon, zest only
½ Shallot
Put the lamb in a pressure cooker, add the stock and cook for 1 hour. Remove the lamb, and pull it off the bone, note that you will only use approx. 20% of the meat for this recipe. The rest you can save for later. Sieve the remaining stock and reduce it to by ½. Using 20% of the lamb add some reduced stock to it and add mustard seeds, finely chopped chives & shallot and the lemon zest. Using moulds that fit portions, preferably silicon, fill with the Gnocchi dough, leaving a hole in the middle, add some pulled lamb and seal the moulds with more Gnocchi dough. Cook in the oven at 90c for 1 hour.
Gnocchi dough
200g Potatoes
150g Smoked butter
240g Potato starch
180 g Egg yolks
43g Salt
Peel the potatoes and slice evenly, cook or stem until tender. Press the cooked potato through a sieve using a spatula, mix the smoked butter and potato starch by hand, then add the egg yolk and salt.
Lamb jus
1l Chicken stock
1l Lamb stock
100g Celeriac
200g Onion
100g Fennel
1pc Star anise
1tsp Fennel seeds
3pc Juniper berries
Lamb cap and silver skin
200g Butter
Roast the lamb cap and silver skin in the oven until golden brown. Roast the vegetables in a large pot and add the spice and stock. Reduce 1/3 and remove from the stove, add most of the roasted lamb cap/silver skin and leave to infuse for 30 minutes with the lid on. Sieve, reheat and add butter and season with salt.
Fried Lamb fillet
1kg Lamb fillet, cap on
Cooking oil
Butter
Fresh thyme
Garlic
Start by removing the fat cap and silver skin off the lamb, and roast in the oven until golden brown, to be used in the sauce and a crumble topping for the cooked lamb. Season the lamb with salt and roast in a pan on all sides in cooking oil. Add butter, thyme and crushed garlic for the last couple of minutes. Remove from the pan, cook in the oven at 80c for approx. 25 minutes, or when the core temperature reaches 58c. Leave to rest for 15 minutes, add the crumble on top of the lamb, slice and serve.
Crumble for lamb
30g Buckwheat whole
30g Roasted and dry lamb fat
20g Dried garlic, crushed (not powder)
15g Dried arctic thyme
10 g ramson caper
Deep-fry the buckwheat until crispy, place on a kitchen paper add salt and leave to cool. Pick the driest part of the lamb fat and dice it. Mix all ingredients except for the ramson capers and use on top of the lamb after cooking. Add the ramson capers last.