Americans seem to have a love-hate relationship with lamb that fits well with the meat's dual personality. Lamb is hearty and robust as well as refined and delicate.

In a country where mild-tasting meats, such as beef filet, pork tenderloin and chicken breast, generally are preferred, lamb is the nonspecialty meat with the strongest flavor. However it also fetches the highest price. A sumptuous reception at which hors d'oeuvres of foie gras or caviar are served also might feature hand-held lamb chops.

Michael Batt, the new executive chef at Thom in New York, takes advantage of lamb's dual characteristics of elegance and gaminess with his grilled lamb sausage with white truffle mashed potatoes and lamb jus. He mixes ground lamb with ground pork and pork fat, adding crushed red pepper flakes, garlic, cumin, salt and a little sugar to make a merguez sausage.

"Lamb has that kind of strong, somewhat gamy kind of flavor to it," he says, noting that the truffles also have an earthy yet elegant quality that can stand up to the spicy meat.

Chops, racks, noisettes and other cuts utilizing the tender lamb loin continue to be popular, but more unusual cuts are becoming widespread, according to chefs and lamb producers.

Gwenaël Le Pape, chef at the new Django restaurant in New York City, says his $24 lamb shank — braised in a heady liquid with star anise, cinnamon, juniper and various herbs — sells as well as the $29 rack of lamb that currently is on the menu. The rack is brushed with Dijon mustard and is coated with a traditional persillade of parsley, garlic, bread crumbs and olive oil, and it is served with minted baby fennel.

Le Pape says he plans to keep the shank on the menu permanently but in the winter will replace its current accompaniment of sweet pea polenta with a wild mushroom risotto. Although the food cost for the shank is much lower than that for the rack, Le Pape points out that the shank also is more complicated and time-consuming to prepare.