Mechoui Lamb

 

Made slow roast Mechoui Lamb over the weekend. I was thinking and dreaming about it through the week. 3 hours of roasting the freaking leg!!!

Unlike my slow-roast beef, this one came out tops. The inside was pink, faintly bloody and oh-so-tender. Better yet, the spice marinade seeped and permeated the lamb leg. Definitely one of my better experiments.

Recipe

Prep time: 20 min

Roasting time: 3.5 hours

• 1 whole leg of lamb on the bone about 2kg. Chopped up in 3 parts (because I had a small oven)
• 5 tablespoons of oil
• 4 cloves of garlic, pressed and roughly chopped up
• 2 tablespoons salt, or to taste
• 1 tablespoons cracked pepper
• 2 tablespoons cumin
• 1 tablespoon turmeric

Simple, no?

Marinating the Leg of Lamb

• Clean, dry and remove excess fat from your lamb. My butchers are Muslim dudes who do an amazing of prepping the leg. In fact, they chopped up the leg nicely once I told them I wanted to roast it.
• Stab the lamb with a sharp pointy knife. Space the holes out at decent intervals.
• Whack all of the ingredients into a bowl. Stir until it’s a paste.
• Generously smother the lamb with the paste and dig the garlic into the knife holes.
• Leave in fridge for 6 hours (or better yet, overnight!). Try not to stare too longingly at it.

Roasting the Lamb

• Pre-heat the oven to 240C for 30 min.
• Add lamb to the oven. Add 1 cup of water to the roast pan. Roast uncovered at 240C for 20min to brown the lamb. Sizzle sizzle, baby.  The water keeps the lamb moist and prevents it from drying out.
• Turn down the heat to 160C. Continue roasting the lamb for 3hours (or 180min). Bast every 60min with the jus and coat the lamb pieces with a little oil. Check that there’s enough water in the pan.
• Wait patiently. I suggest a thick book like The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 22. 

Slice, Dice and Serve the Lamb

• Stab the lamb with a fork. If there’s a little blood, it’s OK. Remove and rest the leg of lamb on a plate for 20min. I left it uncovered.
• Make gravy from the jus in the roasting pan.
  • Add water. Scrape the drippings until it dissolves in the jus.
  • Separately fry onions and garlic and whatever you want.
  • Add the dissolved dripping and bring to a boil.
  • Reduce the fire to a simmer and thicken with cornstarch water.
• Start carving the lamb up. Steal the odd piece and feel good about your creation. A video tutorial on cutting up the lamb below:

Carving up a leg of lamb with bone in.

Serve to appreciative diners.

Recipe adapted from Moroccan food at About.com. Roasting done with a Convection Oven.