Cheaper Than Lamb? Discover This Tender Meat Alternative!

Each year, you celebrate Easter with a leg of lamb, cherished for its unique flavor and melt-in-your-mouth texture. In Christian tradition, lamb symbolizes resurrection. However, nowadays, it’s your wallet that needs resurrecting… You are financially strained, and lamb is certainly not the most wallet-friendly option. At the butcher, expect to pay around 30 euros per kilo. Hosting a large family? Costs quickly add up: for 10 people, you typically need about a 3 kilo leg, totaling around 90 euros. As an equally tasty but less traditional alternative, Laurent Mariotte offers an economical solution costing just 10-15 euros per kilo. It’s three times cheaper than lamb, and his technique ensures the meat is just as tender!

To achieve tenderness, lamb leg is usually slow-cooked in the oven at a low temperature, sometimes up to 7 hours. Here, Laurent Mariotte suggests a much simpler and quicker recipe. The cooking time is just 2 hours and 30 minutes, and according to him, the meat is “perfectly tender,” as he assures on YouTube. Instead of traditional lamb leg, Laurent Mariotte uses pork roast, which you can find for about 10-15 euros per kilo at the butcher. It’s affordable, yes, but you might think it’s not the most tender cut. However, the host of “Petits plats en équilibre” has a secret weapon: he slow-cooks the pork… in milk! “The milk helps keep the roast soft and moist during cooking,” he explains.

Here’s his method:

• Brown the meat on all sides in a casserole dish with a drizzle of neutral oil (like grapeseed oil).
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Add a liter of milk and a few sprigs of rosemary for aroma.
• Cover the pot with a lid and cook for 2 hours 30 minutes on medium heat.

And it’s ready! How does it taste? “The milk did its job: it’s perfectly tender as needed,” Laurent Mariotte delights. You’ll have to try it and see for yourself!

In the end, lamb isn’t the only meat that can be a hit at the Easter table. With gentle cooking in milk, the pork roast becomes tender and turns into an economical and satisfying option. It’s a simple way to entertain without breaking the bank, while still enjoying the pleasure of a hearty dish.