The Reason You Should Always Soak Your Lamb Chops In Milk

Beef, pork, and chicken are played out. Over-eaten. Everything that could possibly be done to beef, pork, and chicken has already been done in the American diet over and over again. It's time to branch out to newer meats and different flavor profiles. It's time to embrace lamb in all its gamey glory.

Now for many of the fatigued American palates out there, unfamiliar tastes can be a bit uncomfortable to embrace. But there's a whole world of new experiences out there, and meats like lamb can take you on a magic carpet ride of new textures, flavors, and cuisines.

A chief complaint with lamb is its strong smell. Lamb has a very meaty, musky taste and a smell that can be overpowering. Fortunately, there are very simple ways to address this smell. It may be a bit odd, but all you have to do is soak the lamb in milk.

According to Livestrong, leaving lamb to marinate in milk for a few hours, or even overnight, is an effective method to mellow out that gamey smell. After soaking, you can just pull the meat right out of the marinade and then rinse it before cooking.

Our Everyday Life explains that the gamey smell comes from the fat of the animal and the myoglobin in the meat. Myoglobin is the red liquid that comes from meat that is often confused with blood. Marinating the lamb in milk will draw out and settle some of its less pleasant smells and flavors. This method of milk soaking is also used for other meats with overwhelmingly gamey flavors, such as venison. Marinating in milk does not entirely get rid of the gamey flavors, as gamey taste is part of the allure of these meats, but it can make the meat more suitable for unfamiliar mouths, and can perhaps get some more people to stretch their stomachs out of their comfort zones.