I am very partial to a nice leg of roast lamb, but I was looking for a way to cook it that was something other than plain roast. This is what I came up with.
I started with a piece of leg meat that had been "butterflied". This means that the bone has been removed, making a flatter, wider joint. The piece that I bought was actually quite thick, more like the cut known as "rump". I cut it into two pieces, for easier serving, and then marinated it for about four hours in a marinade made from chopped Garlic, Rosemary and Thyme bound together with some vegetable oil:
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| The meat marinating |
I then arranged the meat on a rack above a roasting-tin filled with potatoes, onions and Flageolet Beans covered with stock. This meant that as the meat cooked (25 minutes per 500g plus 25 minutes - at 190C), juices from it dripped down into the dish below, producing a lovely flavoursome gravy. Making gravy often means a last-minute panic just when you need to be carving meat and dishing-up vegetables, but my dish avoids all that.
I did find though that since I needed to use quite a lot of stock to keep the potatoes mostly submerged the gravy came out fairly thin, and at the last minute I thickened it with some slaked cornflower. Other than that, the dish turned out just as I had hoped it would:
I did find though that since I needed to use quite a lot of stock to keep the potatoes mostly submerged the gravy came out fairly thin, and at the last minute I thickened it with some slaked cornflower. Other than that, the dish turned out just as I had hoped it would:
Although the skin was nice and crisp, the meat stayed really moist and tender. I think this may have been partially due to the fact that the stock produced a fair bit of steam. And I just love the combination of creamy beans and soft potatoes infused with lamb-ey juices! I served the dish with some broccoli just to add a bit of colour, but I have to say that the broccoli was definitely a minor element of this meal.
Must admit that we rarely buy a joint for the two of us but it looks tasty! Are you a red and still baaing man? Must admit I like my meat on the well done side.
ReplyDeleteSue, I like my meat cooked on the well-done end of the scale too, though I am less averse to the Meduim than I used to be. Still couldn't eat Lamb cooked vey rare.
DeleteI so love lamb, but my husband doesn't. So I only tend to eat it when I go out. It is very good though.
ReplyDeleteI love lamb but we rarely buy it, it's just so expensive to get a decent sized piece compared to other meats. It looks delicious how you cooked it.
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious, Mark. We don't often do lamb because it is very expensive. My favorite recipe for a butterflied leg is a Julia Child recipe that marinates it in olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic and rosemary. Then it gets thrown on a charcoal grill. Definitely a summertime recipe that doesn't have the advantage of potatoes and beans cooked in lamb drippings.
ReplyDeleteNot normally a fan of lamb but I have to admit this looks really good.
ReplyDelete