Slow Roasted Leg of Lamb
Lunch | French
This is one of the most forgiving dishes you can make in the oven. A bone-in leg of lamb goes in at 150°C, sealed tightly under foil, and sits for four hours while the collagen slowly breaks down and the meat becomes tender enough to pull apart with forks. Underneath the lamb, thirty cloves of garlic confit in the rendered fat and beef stock, transforming from sharp and pungent into something sweet, jammy and almost creamy. At the end, the garlic, onions and pan juices get blended into a sauce that’s rich without any of the harshness you’d expect from that much garlic.
The process is almost entirely hands-off once it’s in the oven. The two things that matter most are getting a tight seal on the pan at the start so the lamb braises in its own steam and juices, and removing the foil for the final 20 minutes to get colour on the outside. I use beef stock rather than lamb stock because it gives a deeper, more robust base to the sauce.
Start it before lunch and it will be ready by dinner.
Ingredients
- 1.5kg (3.3 lbs) lamb leg, bone in
- sea salt and black pepper, to season
- 30 cloves garlic, peeled
- 2 red onions, quartered
- 8 sprigs rosemary
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 3 fresh bay leaves
- 750ml (3 cups) beef stock
Directions
PREP THE LAMB
- Preheat the oven to 150°C fan forced (300°F).
- Season the lamb with salt on all sides. Place the garlic in the base of a large heavy-based roasting pan, then top with the lamb.
- Place the onions, rosemary, thyme and bay leaves in around the lamb, season with some black pepper, then pour over the stock.
- Place a piece of baking paper over the top of the lamb, then cover the pan tightly with foil.
ROAST THE LAMB
- Roast the lamb for 4 hours.
- Increase the oven temperature to 200°C fan forced (390°F).
- Remove the foil from the pan and roast for a further 20 minutes, until the lamb skin begins to brown and crispen. Transfer the lamb to a serving dish and keep warm.
MAKE PAN SAUCE AND SERVE
- Remove all the hard herbs from the pan, then transfer the pan sauce, with the garlic and onions, to a jug and allow the fat to settle to the top.
- Skim off the fat, then puree with a stick (immersion) blender until smooth.
- Pour the sauce over the lamb and pull the meat apart from the bone with carving forks to serve.
Recipe notes
Lamb leg, bone in:
The bone is important here. It conducts heat into the center of the meat and contributes collagen and gelatin to the pan juices as it cooks, which gives the sauce its body and gloss. A 1.5kg of bone-in leg comfortably feeds four. If your butcher only has smaller half-legs, two of those work just as well with the same cooking time. Ask for the aitch bone removed if you want easier carving at the table.
Garlic:
Thirty cloves sounds like a lot but don’t be put off. Low, slow heat completely transforms garlic: the allicin compounds that give raw garlic its sharpness break down over time and what’s left is mild, sweet and almost nutty. Peeling thirty cloves is the most tedious part of the prep. To speed it up, blanch the unpeeled cloves in boiling water for 30 seconds and the skins slip straight off. Pre-peeled cloves from the supermarket also work fine here.
Beef stock:
I use beef stock rather than lamb stock because it gives a darker, more robust base that stands up to the richness of the confit garlic sauce. A good quality store-bought stock works well. If you want more depth, a veal or brown chicken stock will both give excellent results. The stock also acts as the braising liquid that keeps the lamb moist during the four-hour cook, so don’t reduce the quantity. If your stock is very salty, season the lamb more conservatively at the start.