Recipe LXXXIV - Slow Roasted Lamb in a Rosemary and Red Wine Sauce

Making Christmas dinner for everyone is my yearly task and every year I try and outdo the main course from the year before. If I think of something new, I try to add to the other courses. At the weekend, I tried out my new enamel roasting tin, to see if it gives me inspiration for this year. And you know what? It wasn't bad. Here are the results.


Ingredients:
500g-700g lamb (leg, shoulder, etc.) with the bone
A slice of butter, kneaded with rosemary and whole black peppercorns
Half a bottle of red wine (Greek or south Italian, for a fruity, less acidic taste
4 tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
8-15 potatoes, fairly whole
4 large carrots
2 bay leaves
3 onions, quartered

Instructions:
Turn the oven on to about 150°C. Take your roasting tin and coat it in a layer of butter. Although it is enamel and self-basting, this will make sure, as producers are a little over-confident in their own products' capabilities. So, peel your potatoes, cut your carrots. You can parboil them or you can leave them unboiled and put them later straight in the roaster. Anyhow, take the butter, rosemary and peppercorns, and grind into a consistency. Spread it out on the top of your lamb and put it in the roaster, alone, for 15 minutes.



Put two of the onions, the carrots, the potatoes and bay leaves in the roaster and cook for a further half and hour to 45 minutes.



Before you remove it from the oven, get your tomatoes and red wine, plus more rosemary and the last of the onions. Give them a good blitzing in the mixer.



Pour the liquid around the outside of the roaster, leaving the lamb untouched.



Put it back in the oven for at least an hour, removing the lid for the last 20 minutes and serve the meat thickly sliced.

Recipe LII - English-style Slow-roasted Leg of Lamb, Vegetable Medley and Roast Potatoes

Lamb is my favourite meat. I love lamb so much, I only eat it four or five times a year. It is such a wonderfully sumptuous meat that the best people in the world to consult when it comes to its cooking are the people of the English-speaking world (UK, New Zealand, India, especially), but also the Spanish to the west of Madrid, the North Africans and the Portuguese. There are some very, very special breeds of lamb that provide some of the best meat in the world.:Shetland lamb, grazing on grasses close to the sea, giving them a briny taste, the farming practices of Wales which have been recognised with the PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) by the European Commission, but whichever lamb you choose, be sure to cook it with love, and over a long period of time.
This recipe takes a loooooong time to cook, but gives you a loooooong time to do other things too.

Ingredients for the lamb:
One leg of lamb, fat removed, tendons cut off
4 carrots, diced
1 whole garlic head, cut in half
2 onions, cut into rings
1 long, thin red pepper, diced into small pieces
3 sprigs of thyme
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary (my rosemary hasn't woken up yet, so I used what I'd saved from last autumn)
Ground black pepper
350ml meat stock and 200ml red wine (see below for details)



Instructions:
Switch on the oven to a low 120°C (or 100°C if you have no fan). Dry the exterior of your lamb from the moisture it may have accumulated by being in a plastic pack. Rub salt into it thoroughly. Then rub your fresh herbs and pepper into it.



Take a large, high-sided baking tray and put your diced vegetables in there randomly. Place the meat on top and put it in the oven for seven (yes SEVEN!!) hours. The low heat will mean it will fall off the bone when time to eat.



After 2 hours, remove the lamb from the oven and pour the stock and red wine over it. Cover the top well in aluminium foil and put it back in the oven for the remaining time.



On the seventh hour (imprecise - an hour either way won't hurt it!), peel your potatoes and parboil them. When the potatoes are ready to go in the oven, remove the lamb from the oven, put it and the potatoes in a separate roasting tray and turn up the heat to about 180°C to 200°C. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes.



Meanwhile, take the remainder of the juice from the seven-hour slow roast and reduce slowly to make a delicious gravy.



I like to serve the whole thing on a large plate so guests can help themselves.



To make meat stock:
Save the bones of a roast chicken. Don't throw them away. Put them in a large saucepan. Add a generous amount of salt, some pepper, dried herbs and an onion, halved. I even used some of the peeled carrot, as you see in the photo below. Boil it for a good hour on a low heat.
Drain it off into a bowl.
Take the amount you want for this recipe and put the rest in an old resealable ice cream tub and put in the freezer for another day.



To make the vegetable medley:
Take 3 carrots (chopped), a handful of green beans (halved), one head of fennel (diced), and 3 cloves of garlic (thinly chopped).
Fry the fennel for 4 minutes. Add the carrots, fry for 3 minutes. Add the green beans, fry for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, fry for 1 minute. Add the water from the potatoes. Cover and cook on a medium-low heat until all the water has disappeared. Put aside until the rest is ready.