Cuts · UK butchery
Leg of lamb
Leaner than the shoulder. Butterflied it becomes a slab of even thickness and a genuinely fast barbecue cut; left whole it is a long one.
Known as
The same muscle carries different names in different butchery systems, and some of those names mean different cuts elsewhere. Where a name is ambiguous, BBQHQ says so rather than picking one.
- United Kingdom
- Leg of lamb
- Butterflied leg
Boned and opened flat, which is what makes it a barbecue cut rather than an oven one.
Where it comes from on the animal
Lamb leg
Hindquarter · high use · connective tissue: moderate
Leaner and less collagenous than the shoulder. Cut into steaks it grills fast; left whole it is a long indirect cook.
Muscles: Biceps femoris, Semimembranosus, Quadriceps femoris
Asking a butcher for it
Named the way uk butchery names it. If the counter does not recognise the name, the anatomy is the fallback: ask for the cut by where it comes from.
- What to say
- Leg of lamb, or Butterflied leg (GB) depending where you are.
- If that draws a blank
- Ask for hindquarter — the muscle is Biceps femoris, Semimembranosus, Quadriceps femoris.
- What to specify
- Typical weight is 1.8–2.8 kg.
What it is suited to
Derived from how hard the muscle works and how much connective tissue it carries, which is the pairing that decides whether a cut wants a fire under it or beside it. BBQHQ does not rank cuts and does not name a best one.
- Moderate connective tissue: it will take either approach, and the two give genuinely different results rather than one being a compromise.
- A hard-working muscle, which is why it carries the tissue it does and why it rewards patience.
BBQHQ holds cooking evidence for this cut as butterflied leg of lamb.
What to use instead
A substitute is not the same as an equivalent. These are graded, because “yes, use that instead” is the answer that ruins dinners: most real substitutions work only once something about the cook changes.
No cut in US butchery corresponds
Not a substitute for this
IMPS Series 200 has been read and specifies the American leg items. What BBQHQ does not hold is an AHDB cutting specification for the whole British leg or for the butterflied leg, so there is no British boundary to compare the American one against. Unmapped because one side is unspecified, not because the cuts are unrelated — which they plainly are not.
Asking for it in another country
US butchery: No direct equivalent
IMPS Series 200 has been read and specifies the American leg items. What BBQHQ does not hold is an AHDB cutting specification for the whole British leg or for the butterflied leg, so there is no British boundary to compare the American one against. Unmapped because one side is unspecified, not because the cuts are unrelated — which they plainly are not.
The UK side of these mappings rests on AHDB’s published cutting specifications, which BBQHQ has read. The US side does not: USDA’s Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications and the Beef Checkoff cut pages both refuse automated access, so no mapping here reaches “same cut” across two butchery systems. See the open question.
Typical size
1.8–2.8 kg