Oriental Style Leg of Lamb. Open to Experimentation?

There are few meats more tasty than a roasted leg of Wicklow lamb, garlic and rosemary studded, cooked pink and served with a traditional gravy and boiled potatoes (with a green veg for form’s sake too). There are a few half decent recipes here on the blog for such like. However, I like to try out my ideas and I often (I really mean rarely) listen to suggestions from friends and family. So, when a friend suggested I should part roast and part steam a leg of lamb “low and slow”, I was delighted (reluctant) to try it.

I was enthused (dragged kicking and screaming) to try out a semi-steamed leg and I thought it might be enhanced (saved) by a good spice rub and a nice sauce finish. With all that in mind, I devised this Slow Roasted, Oriental Style, Leg of Lamb. It’s a cracker.

The minimal ingredients bely a huge flavour.

Ingredients

• 1 leg of best Wicklow lamb
• 1 teaspoon of each of garlic salt, cumin powder, chilli powder and black pepper.
• 2 tablespoons of good honey
• 4 tablespoons of best quality, light soy sauce

There was so little to do, I had time for a couple of decent photos.

Cut some slashes in the lamb. We just want to get through the top layer of fat and membrane so the spices have a chance to get at the top layer of meat while cooking. Mix together the dry ingredients. Rub the dry mixture into the lamb.

Don’t be afraid to give it a decent massage. It will add to the end result.

Put this on a rack, in a roasting pan and add a quarter litre 1/2 pint of water.

Adding the water went against my instincts for a nice leg of lamb.

Cover the roasting tray with a loose fitting tent of aluminium foil. This facilitates the steaming of the joint. I was happy (distraught)  to try this approach. Place it in a medium low (150ºC/300ºF) oven and leave it there for three hours. Remove it from the oven and baste the meat with the juices from the pan. Return it to the oven for another hour, uncovered.

At this stage I was getting nervous of the outcome.

Mix together the soy and honey. Remove the lamb from the oven. Baste the lamb with the mixture and return to the oven, uncovered.

I apologise. I couldn’t resist this shot. You can see my finger tips through the honey!

Baste the lamb with the tray mixture twice or three times more over the next hour.

At this stage, I knew we were on to a winner.

Remove the lamb from the oven and place it on a chopping board, getting value from that aluminium foil by wrapping the lamb in it. Pass the tray sauce through a separator to remove the layer of fat. Reduce it down by about half until you have a delicious, salty/sweet sauce.

Carve the lamb and serve it with something vaguely Oriental, such as a nice fried rice. That’s what I did. It is delicious and really comes into it’s own when a generous splash of the sauce is added.

Low and slow wins against fast and pink in this experiment.

I have lost my skepticism about slow roasted leg of lamb. This is a delight an is really easy to do. It won’t replace the traditional “lamb roasted pink” but there is room for another approach in my growing leg of lamb repertoire. It also shows that I am delighted (grudgingly accepting) to prove my friend right.