Sunday 23 March 2008 - Braised Five Hour Lamb

Today we enjoyed one of our easiest and favourite main courses, and are delighted to share it with you…Enjoy!

Braised Five Hour Lamb with wine, veg and all that (to serve 6)

This is a very easy meal, oft repeated as a Sunday dinner.

Ingredients:

1 large leg of lamb
salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
6 rashers of thick streaky bacon
3 red onions, peeled and quartered
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
2 good handfuls of mixed fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, bay)
4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
6 large carrots, scrubbed and halved
3 parsnips, scrubbed and halved
1 bottle of white wine

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/325ºF/gas 3. In a large casserole pot or a deep seated roasting tray, fry the well-seasoned lamb in a couple of tbsp of olive oil until brown on all sides. Add the bacon, onions and garlic and continue to fry for 3 more minutes. Add the herbs and veg, pour in the wine and an equivalent amount of water, bring to the boil, and tightly cover with kitchen foil.
Bake in the preheated oven for 5 hours until tender, seasoning the cooking liquor to taste.
To serve, pull away a nice portion of meat, take a selection of veg (you may need to dig deep for the onions and bacon) and serve with some crusty bread to mop up the gravy.

This recipe is from Jamie Oliver's excellent book - 'The Return of the Naked Chef'.

In other words, and with the assistance of a trusty Swiss Army Knife:

Capture one of these:




Using the knife, amputate a leg,
and trim it to look a bit like this:





Put the leg into a big casserole dish with the other ingredients and cook for 5 hours to arrive at this…

Don’t forget to bake some fresh crusty bread to absorb the juices that aren’t shown in the photo due to a minor technical problem.