Lamb in a huge pot

Recently I cooked for the family round at my mother’s house. Being a greedy lot, copious quantities of food were expected and subsequently delivered. Central to the feast were three dishes – Imam Bayildi (baked aubergines), Porchetta (roasted belly of pork) and Leg of Lamb cooked in wine. The first two dishes I will pen for you later, but for now, here is the Lamb.

This is a serious winter dish; warming, rich and easy to do, though not quick! The trick here is that the lamb should be cooked for as long as possible. Here is what I did.

1. Take one or more legs of lamb.

Like any dish, the better the quality of lamb, the better the result. However, because this is cooked for so long, go for flavour rather than tenderness. If you have a big enough pot, try mutton! You should tie up the leg with string. This dish cooks for a long time and the leg may fall apart – we don’t want that!

Rub the leg of lamb with salt, then roast in a very hot oven for 15 minutes or so – just to nicely brown the outside.

2. Prepare the pot.

I cooked this on the top and so used a large saucepan. If you want to do this in an oven in an oven dish, you may need to get the sauce going separately first, then transfer it, unless you casserole can go on the top alright. Anyway, back to my saucepan.

You can come up with your own cooking liquid, but it is basically about flavour, of course. Into my pot I put:

• 1 1/2 bottles of red wine
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 ltr stock
• 4 Turnips pealed and quartered
• 6 large carrots, chopped in big chunks
• 20 whole shallots, peeled
• 15 whole cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 bunch of Thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste

You could also add a cinnamon stick and cardamon if you want to move this dish more towards the middle east. Or paprika if you want it more North African.

Bring the liquid up to a simmer and check for taste and seasoning. Adjust as required.

3. Make the Dish

Remove the lamb from the oven and put into the pot. It should be completely covered by the liquid. Bring to a boil just briefly then turn down the heat to minimum and put the lid on tightly.

Now, this is the point when you realise you should have done all this yesterday! The longer this cooks, the better it gets. For our family meal I cooked this the evening before for around 6 hours. I then, turned the heat off, and left the pot sitting on the cooker over night, the lid still tightly on.  I then took it to my mothers and heated it slowly and cooked for a further two hours.

4. Serve the Lamb.

You will need a large serving dish for this! Carefully remove the lamb. Because it has cooked for so long, the meat may just fall off the bone, and that is why we tied it up! Place the lamb in the middle of your server and place all the veg around it. Pour a little of the liquid over the lamb and sprinkle with a large handful of coarsely chopped parsley. Pour the rest of the liquid into a jug with a ladle.

And that is it. Serve it with rice or with Roasted potatoes, or even just chunks of home made bread.

Related posts:

1. Arabic Lamb
2. Oh, but I Love Porchetta!
3. Best Chicken Soup
4. Eggplant Heaven – Imam Bayildi
5. Thank Goodness for Turkey

Tags: lamb, stewed, whole leg, wine

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 10:58 am and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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