Community Pick
Mean's Lamb You Can Eat With a Spoon
photo by kiwidutch
- Ready In:
- 6hrs 40mins
- Ingredients:
- 11
- Yields:
-
1 whole leg of lamb
ingredients
- 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
- Cut most of the fat from the lamb.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Heat 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in the pot and brown lamb slowly on all sides, about 15 minutes.
- Or you can brown in the oven in a roasting pan on high heat.
- preheat oven to 325°.
- Remove browned lamb& set aside.
- Sauté onion, shallots and garlic ( with pancetta, if used) until caramelized–about 20 minutes.
- Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Discard fat in pan.
- Add wine and 2 cups stock and boil rapidly until reduced by half, scraping up any browned bits.
- Add herbs,tomato paste and reserved vegetables to pan.
- Return lamb, fat side up, to the pot.
- If needed, pour in enough additional stock to reach two-thirds of the way up sides of meat.
- Cover tightly and bake until done, basting often to keep the lamb from becoming dry.
- As the meat cooks and is constantly basted, the rich sauce is absorbed and the meat becomes very succulent.
- 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).
- (after browning).
- Plan on seven hours total for an entire leg of lamb. ( example calculation is based on a 2.8 kg / 6.1 lb leg).
- Remove the lamb to a platter.
- Cover with heavy foil to keep warm.
- Pour off all the liquid into a saucepan, skim the fat and boil down about 20 minutes, until it is rich and thick.
- Correct the seasoning and serve as a sauce over the lamb and vegetables.
- SERVING SUGGESTIONS: Serve with Potato & Root Vegetable Mash or Roasted Vegetables.
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Reviews
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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.
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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.”
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Have wanted to make this recipe for a long time, I picked one of the hottest days of Summer to do it, but it was worth it. Over the months Ive read discussions on here and been surprised at the amount of people who dont care for lamb. For them I'd say make this! I couldnt get Zinfandel so subbed with Merlot, loved the rich vegetable sauce and served with lots of mashed potatoes as others suggested. I used rosemary as the herb. Thanks for sharing.
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If you are lucky enough to have leftovers, cover the dish with lettuce leaves and hide it in the vegetable drawer. I used the sirloin half of a leg and reduced the ingredients by half (I cheated a bit with the pancetta) and substituted with Merlot. I have Rosemary, Thyme and Bay leaf growing in the back yard so I used a combination of all three. Make extra mashed potatoes!
see 45 more reviews
Tweaks
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This was the first time I cooked lamb and it came out wonderful. I used a 10lb boneless lamb so I needed to adjust the recipe quantities. I also needed to make substitutions for the shallots and pancetta. I added extra onions and few pinch of garlic powder in place of the shallots and I used plain American bacon chopped in place of the pancetta. I cooked the lamb in my new Ninja crockpot that also works as an oven, cranked it up to 325 degrees for 2 hours and then dropped it down to 275 until I could pull the lamb apart with a fork.
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I may have committed the ultimate sin in that I tried the recipe with venison instead of lamb. Nevertheless, it turned out pretty good although the venison was still rather tough. Next time (and I will again try venison), I will do the marinate thing beforehand. I will also halve the beef stock and tomato paste as I found the sauce to be a little overpowering.
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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 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 Im 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.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
kiwidutch
Netherlands