Mean's Lamb You Can Eat With a Spoon

kiwidutch's Note:

This is one of the most succulent lamb dishes you will ever taste. Long slow cooking makes the dish. This is an adopted recipe from the RecipeZaar account, and I am delighted to be the new owner of such a winning recipe. The size of your leg of lamb is everything in this recipe so please use the Zaar measurement converter ( bottom of the page) to calculate your cooking time as if will vary greatly if you have a very small or very large leg of lamb. (For example 2.8 kg leg = 6.1 lb and would cook for just over 6 hours after the browning stage) If you like this sort of meat, then I'd also recommend my recipe "New Zealand High Country Sheep Station Roast Lamb #186000" because it gives a similar result with fewer steps... (admittedly without the excellent gravy though) Since my home country that my DH jokingly calls Kiwistaan has an excellent reputation for Lamb, I will be assigning this one to ZWT REGION: New Zealand.

• Total Time: 6 hrs 40 mins
• Prep Time: 40 mins
• Cook Time: 6 hrs

Ingredients:

Yield: 1 whole l ...

• 1 leg of lamb
• 2 onions , peeled & quartered
• 6 garlic cloves
• 10 shallots , peeled
• 1 (750 ml) bottle red wine (Zinfandel)
• 4 cups beef stock
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 ounces pancetta , chopped
• 4 tablespoons tomato paste
• fresh rosemary or thyme
• 4 bay leaves

Directions:

1. Cut most of the fat from the lamb.
2. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Heat 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in the pot and brown lamb slowly on all sides, about 15 minutes.
4. Or you can brown in the oven in a roasting pan on high heat.
5. preheat oven to 325°.
6. Remove browned lamb& set aside.
7. Sauté onion, shallots and garlic ( with pancetta, if used) until caramelized–about 20 minutes.
8. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
9. Discard fat in pan.
10. Add wine and 2 cups stock and boil rapidly until reduced by half, scraping up any browned bits.
11. Add herbs,tomato paste and reserved vegetables to pan.
12. Return lamb, fat side up, to the pot.
13. If needed, pour in enough additional stock to reach two-thirds of the way up sides of meat.
14. Cover tightly and bake until done, basting often to keep the lamb from becoming dry.
15. As the meat cooks and is constantly basted, the rich sauce is absorbed and the meat becomes very succulent.
16. The dish is done when the lamb falls off the bone in pieces when prodded with a fork – this takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour per pound (lb) (metric = 1 hour per 450 g).
17. (after browning).
18. Plan on seven hours total for an entire leg of lamb. ( example calculation is based on a 2.8 kg / 6.1 lb leg).
19. Remove the lamb to a platter.
20. Cover with heavy foil to keep warm.
21. Pour off all the liquid into a saucepan, skim the fat and boil down about 20 minutes, until it is rich and thick.
22. Correct the seasoning and serve as a sauce over the lamb and vegetables.
23. SERVING SUGGESTIONS: Serve with Potato & Root Vegetable Mash or Roasted Vegetables.

Reviews

[Tracy K]

Honestly, this is pretty much the only way I cook lamb. Be sure to make a LOT of mashed potatoes to go with it, the sauce makes an incredible gravy, and lots of it. The meat is fall-apart tender, and wonderfully flavored from the wine and aromatic veggies... perfect comfort food.

[JustJanS]

This was great. The only problem I had was knowing what I should do with all the onions, garlic and shallots after I caramelised them. I decided to lay them in the bottom of the baking dish with the lamb on top and cook it all! It worked a treat. Then I just reduced the whole lot to form the sauce. A dish just made for mashed potatoes.

[Mille®]

I made this with fresh local lamb from my butcher. I only had to make one change, because you cannot buy pancetta within 5 miles of here, so I used ¼ pound of chopped, uncured, slab bacon instead. The recipe calls for 6 cloves of garlic but, fortunately, I could only find 10 in my pantry, so I had to make do with just the 10. One comment regarding the cooking process – I tossed about 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary into the liquid and, the first time I opened the oven to baste the lamb, the smell of the rosemary was very strong and almost overpowering. But I’m glad I went with my gut instinct not to remove any of the rosemary, because the eventual taste of the sauce had a most agreeable, distinct but quite subtle, hint of rosemary. Speaking of the sauce – after I had reduced it and skimmed off the fat, I returned the caramelized onions and garlic to the sauce and pureed the whole shootin’ match in the blender – this was about the richest, most savoury meat sauce I have ever had. This review can be summed up in the words of one dinner guest who said, simply, “This lamb is well beyond excellent.”