Posted by The News Review, OR on June 17, 2008 at 15:32:13:
Daughter claims lamb-cooking crown from mother
By Craig Reed
Brenda Poland has keep the lamb cooking contest championship in the family.
Her barbecued lamb loin chops earned top honors in the contest that was part of the 69th annual Douglas County Lamb Show that was held June 7 at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.
The entries in the open division numbered only three, one of those being Poland’s mother, Madeline Smith, who has won this contest five of the past six years.
“I’ve learned from mom,” said Poland of Roseburg. “And I was coerced into entering this contest by her.”
“I can’t think of anybody else I’d rather lose to than my daughter,” said Smith, also of Roseburg.
Linda Bruinsma of Oakland was second with her barbecued Greek lamb salad pita sandwich and Smith was third with sweet and tangy lambwiches.
The 4-H Student Open Class drew only one contestant and James Mansanti of Roseburg won a blue ribbon for his mock chicken legs that consisted of ground lamb wrapped with bacon and cooked on a skewer.
The judge was Chris VanDyke, the culinary chef from Umpqua Community College.
Poland was raised on her parent’s cattle and sheep ranch outside Roseburg and ate beef and lamb fixed by her mother. But after leaving home, Poland didn’t fix or eat lamb for many years until about six years ago when her own daughter, Alysse, began taking a lamb to the lamb show as a 4-H project. While Poland and her two daughters enjoyed her lamb cooking, husband Rick continued to prefer beef.
“I think lamb has a particular flavor,” Poland said. “You have to practice recipes to find what you like.”
Poland and Smith have talked about lamb recipes through the recent years and “bounced ideas off each other about what is best.”
The barbecue sauce Poland used in her lamb show contest recipe was not a bottled product. Instead, the sauce consisted of 1 12-ounce can of chipotle peppers in an adobe sauce, a half cup of chili sauce and three tablespoons of steak sauce. After mixing those ingredients, she marinated the chops in the sauce for two to three hours.
“You then grill or barbecue the meat to how well you like it done,” Poland said. “Cook it to your taste.”
She added the barbecue sauce can also be used to marinate beef.
To complete her meal for the cooking contest, Poland added a half ear of corn on the cob and parsley slaw.
“I decided on corn on the cob because 90 percent of the time it is served at barbecues, and I didn’t want to do potato salad,” she said.
Mansanti, 11, entered the contest because “I love to cook and I want to be a chef when I grow up.”
In addition to entering the cooking contest, Mansanti also showed and sold a lamb in the evening auction. He is a member of the Good Shepherd 4-H Club. He plans to enter the 4-H mini-meal and food prep contests at the Douglas County Fair in August.
“He’s had an interest in cooking since he was very young,” said the boy’s mother, Tamie Mansanti.
For his contest entry, James Mansanti decided to take a beef recipe and substitute lamb. Into one pound of ground lamb that he purchased from Umpqua Valley Lamb, a Douglas County business, he mixed one teaspoon of salt, a half cup of oatmeal, a tablespoon of barbecue sauce and some chopped up onions. After mixing the ingredients, he made small balls, wrapped them with bacon and speared them with chopsticks.
He then cooked the meat-bacon combination on a grill, turning them frequently. The cooking time to reach an internal temperature of 170 degrees in the meat was 20 to 25 minutes. During the grilling and turning, the meat was basted with more barbecue sauce.
“We tried it at our house and I really liked it,” the young chef said. “I thought it was really good.”
“His sister never tries anything, but she tried this and liked it,” Tamie Mansanti said.
The mock chicken leg name comes from the fact the skewered entree has a chicken leg look.
James Mansanti took four of the chicken legs to the contest and added peppers and parsley to dress up the plate. To warm them up just before the judging, he took the meat outside to the barbecue pits where lamb was cooking for the evening dinner. Mansanti turned his entree over the coals for about six minutes and then took them back inside to be judged.
The chef ate one and while Mansanti was in another building showing his lamb, visitors to the show helped themselves to the remaining three legs.
They were liked and a chef can’t ask for much more.