John Myers
You want to prepare a perfectly cooked leg of lamb and are wondering: How do I measure the core temperature of a leg of lamb? And what is the right core temperature? We’ll tell you!
Lamb and leg
A lamb is a young sheep that is not older than one year. Lamb is light, tender, and has only a small amount of fat. The leg of lamb – also called shank or gigot – is cut from the hind quarter of the animal and weighs between 2 kg and 4 kg.
You can buy a leg of lamb on the bone or already unleash and 1 kg leg of lamb on the bone will cost you 10-15 €. If you want to serve your meat as a roast, you can safely leave the bone on. For a stuffed leg of lamb, you’d be better off deboning the bone.
Prepare leg of lamb
There are several ways to prepare a leg of lamb:
- classic braising in the oven
- Preparation of the grill
- gentle low-temperature cooking in the oven
- Cooking in a Roman pot
- Low-temperature sous vide cooking
It is up to you which method of preparation you choose. The cooking time depends on the size of the leg and the cooking method used. It is between 3-7 hours. With sous vide cooking it is even 36 hours. But all cooking methods have one thing in common: You can use the core temperature to check the doneness of the meat. By determining the core temperature, you get a perfectly prepared leg of lamb.
We recommend trying to cook your leg of lamb at a low temperature, this way it will be extra tender!
Right core temperature Leg of lamb
The best way to determine the doneness is to measure the core temperature. The core temperature of the leg of lamb is measured with a meat or grill thermometer. There are different types of core temperature gauges, but they all work on the same principle. First, a long spike is carefully inserted into the meat. A temperature sensor is located at the tip of the mandrel, which measures the temperature and transmits it to a temperature display.
You can use the core temperature method for all types of preparation. Proper implementation is key. With some cooking methods (e.g. traditional braising), the temperature of the meat is higher at the outer edge than in the center. To avoid getting the wrong temperature, it’s important to place the thermometer probe in the center or thickest part of the meat. That’s where the core temperature is. The consequence of an incorrectly placed thermometer would be an incorrectly measured temperature and a resulting cooking level that deviates from the actual one.
With the following core temperatures you can reach the doneness of a leg of lamb:
Cooking level – core temperature
- medium – 60 degrees
- well-done – 70-72 degrees
The cooking level medium is reached at a core temperature of 60 degrees. The leg still has a pink core, but most of the meat is rather greyish. If the leg of lamb has a core temperature of 70-72 degrees, it is well done and therefore completely cooked and less tender.
Determine doneness by pressure test
The pressure test is relatively inaccurate and only gives you rough information about the firmness of the meat. How to determine the doneness of your leg of lamb with the palm pressure test:
- Place the tip of the thumb with the tip of the ring or pinky finger of one hand.
- Press the palm of your hand with one finger of your other hand. You’ll find it’s softer on the thumb and ring finger combination than on the thumb and pinky combination.
- Then press into the meat of the leg of lamb. Compare the firmness of the flesh to that of the heel of your hand.
You can then use the firmness of the meat to roughly estimate how well done it is:
Doneness pressure test
- medium rare like thumb + ring finger
- well done like thumb + little finger
If your meat feels like the thumb and ring finger combination, your lamb is medium rare. This makes it tender and pink on the inside. It is well done with the combination of thumb and little finger.
