Cuts · US butchery
Lamb leg chops, boneless
IMPS item 1234, cut from any boneless leg item in the 234 series with the shank and heel meat excluded. The nearest American thing to a British lamb steak, and sold under a different name.
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 States
- Lamb leg chops, boneless
- Leg center steak
The URMIS common name for IMPS item 1234.
What to ask a butcher for
- United States: A boneless steak cut across the leg. In Britain the same thing is simply a lamb leg steak.
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 us 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
- Lamb leg chops, boneless, or Leg center steak (US) depending where you are.
- If that draws a blank
- Ask for hindquarter — the muscle is Biceps femoris, Semimembranosus, Quadriceps femoris.
- What to specify
- Thickness, which governs the timing more than weight does — the usual range is 20–30 mm. Typical weight is 150–250 g.
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.
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.
Workable, once you change the cook
The reciprocal of the British leg steak mapping. Both are steaks across a boned-out leg; the specifications differ on which parts of the leg are included and on how much fat may be left.
- IMPS 1234 must exclude shank and heel meat. AHDB's L017 uses the whole leg, removing the topside along the seam.
- AHDB caps fat at 5 mm; IMPS leaves fat trim to the purchaser.
Asking for it in another country
UK butchery: Overlapping cut
The reciprocal of the British leg steak mapping. Both are steaks across a boned-out leg; the specifications differ on which parts of the leg are included and on how much fat may be left.
What differs
- IMPS 1234 must exclude shank and heel meat. AHDB's L017 uses the whole leg, removing the topside along the seam.
- AHDB caps fat at 5 mm; IMPS leaves fat trim to the purchaser.
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
150–250 g