Well, it takes about five hours to cook this lamb to perfection but the whole recipe takes about six hours from start to finish, give or take a little bit of time. Also, I neglected to take pictures during the creation of this recipe, so bear with me on this one! I only have pics of the finished product… Here’s what I can tell you about this dish: you’re going to end up with succulent lamb, a hearty sauce AND a delicious gravy. How can you beat that? Served over a pappardelle noodle, this dish rocks.
There are two different ways to buy leg of lamb at the store. One with the bone in and one that has the bone removed. I’ve been talking with various people about the benefits of keeping the bone in during cooking for more flavor. The feedback I get is that for braising (which we will be doing in this recipe) it doesn’t really matter. Also, if you get a leg that already has the bone removed, you can jam all kinds of seasonings and whatnot inside. Well, as usual, I went with what I wanted and bought the bone in. I like the presentation.
To cook this dish, you are going to need some special equipment. The first thing is some cooking twine. You will also need a dutch oven, brasier or heavy stock pot to braise the lamb in. Lastly, a blender or immersion blender would be very helpful with the sauce at the end.
Ingredients for the Lamb:
1 5-6lb Leg of Lamb
15 Garlic Cloves, cut in 1/2 lengthwise
1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
1 Tablespoon Onion Powder
Salt and Fresh Cracked Pepper
4 cups beef or vegetable stock
1 stick, unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
Ingredients for the Sauce:
4 leeks, washed, trimmed and cut into 1″ segments
4 turnips, peeled and diced
4 large carrots, peeled and diced
2 large onions (Spanish will work), peeled and diced
2 shallots, peeled and diced
10-15 cloves of Garlic
4 to 8 more cups of stock, depending on the size of your braising pot
3 tablespoons flour
Preheat your oven to 275 degrees.
Okay, so lets start working on the lamb. We have to truss the leg because otherwise it will fall apart while we are braising it and you’ll end up fishing out pieces parts of lamb from the pot. That stinks. To truss the leg, tie the twine around one end securely. Using a series of half-hitches, truss the length of the leg. Basically, you take the twine and wrap it around the leg, tucking the trailing end through the loop before you make the next loop. There is a very helpful demo you can view on trussing a leg of lamb here.
Once you have the leg tied up, take a paring knife and create pockets to push the slivers of the garlic cloves into. Stud the leg very well with the garlic. After all the garlic is inserted into the leg, sprinkle the onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper all over the leg. Set aside.
Start heating the olive oil and 1/2 of the butter in the bottom of your pan for braising. Once the butter is melted and the pan is hot (but not smoking hot), add the leg to the pan. Brown on all sides for 5-6 minutes and then remove the leg from the pot and set aside. You will have some fond (the browned bits) coating the bottom of the pan. That’s ok, we want that to add flavor to the dish. While the pan is hot, add in the stock slowly while you are scraping up the bits of the bottom of the pan. We have just deglazed the pan.
Put the leg back into the pan- the liquid should come up about 3/4 of the way to the top of the leg. Add the other 1/2 stick of butter and bring to a light boil. Cover the pot once it has started to bubble and put into the oven.
I checked mine about every hour or so, adding a little stock if the levels started to get low. After it has been cooking for about 3 hours, let’s start to work on the vegetables. In a large skillet or sautee pan, add some olive oil. Add the vegetables in batches- we just want to begin their cooking process. Cook the vegetables for about 10-15 minutes each. If some browning occurs, that’s perfectly fine, particularly for the onions. Set the veggies aside until the lamb has cooked for 4 hours.
After 4 hours, remove the lamb from the oven. Remove the lamb from the pot. Take about 4 cups of the stock from the pot and set aside. Add in the vegetables to the pot and lay the lamb on top of them. The stock should come up about 1/2 way to the top of the leg of lamb. If not, add more FRESH stock to the pot- not the stock that was cooking in the pot. Return the pot to the oven and cook for 1 hour more.
While the lamb and veggies are cooking, lets start reducing down the stock that we took out of the pot. Add it to a sauce pan and put it over medium head. Reduce until it is at 1/2 of the original volume. This should take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. While it is reducing, take out a small bowl and add the 3 tablespoons of flour. Add to it 3 tablespoons of water and mix well with a fork. This is called a slurry. Add the slurry to the hot, reduced stock while stirring. We just made a delicious gravy. Nice work.
Okay, so the lamb should be done now. Remove it from the oven and remove it from the pot. Set aside and cover with aluminum foil. With a slotted spoon, remove all the veggies from the pot. Add them to either a bowl if you are using an immersion blender or into the blender. Start to blend until pureed. If you need to add stock from the pot to thin out a little bit, rock on! It should have a thick consistency though.
Next up, spoon some of the veggie sauce into the bottom of a bowl, then using tongs take some of the lamb (it will be fork tender- no knife needed) and place on top. Pour over some of the gravy and enjoy! We had this with a delicious Barolo. Hope that you love it too!
Enjoy.
Succulent lamb with a veggie puree and reduced gravy. Mmm... good.
