Easy Leg of Lamb
Hello lovelies!
As mentioned in my previous post, Matt and I have spent the last month experimenting with frugal food shopping in an attempt to be less wasteful and more conscious about our groceries. So far, we've had some surprising successes, a couple of disappointments and managed to cut our food bill in half compared to our usual shopping. Not too shabby for one month!
So, before we head off on a much anticipated holiday, I wanted to leave you with two posts that will hopefully demonstrate how we mean to go on with these frugal food posts. This time there are only two but in the future I'm hoping I can add three posts per week to demonstrate how we got on with our shopping and cooking. The first post (like this one), will be about the dish we cooked on the Sunday (our main food prep day and when I cook the big ticket item). The next post (or two) will be about how we used the leftovers in order to stretch it out without getting bored. Ultimately, my plan is to have a set of starter recipes (for the Sunday cooking) and then a bunch of linked posts that demonstrate all the different ways to use up leftovers. I'm pretty excited about that... hope you are too!
Now, without further rambling, let's get on to today's recipe: whole leg of lamb.
This beauty was half off at the store which meant that the entire leg cost only £9. That was just too good to be true so of course I jumped at the chance to try this recipe! As I mentioned previously, I use the Tesco app to work out what products will be on sale each week and then build my weekly meals around them in order to get the most bang for our buck (or pound, rather).
I was a little anxious having never cooked lamb like this before but it really could not have been simpler. You just pop it in a roasting tin with some onion, garlic and celery and then top the whole thing off with beef stock before leaving it to roast for a few hours. When we took it out, it wasn't quite falling off the bone so in the future I might leave it a bit longer if I'm planning to shred it. However, this time, we were happy to have slices so it worked out perfectly. I have to also add: this recipe was very forgiving! We didn't have fresh rosemary so I used the dried version and we didn't notice any difference.
We served this with a couple of healthy sides: new potatoes, broccoli, green beans and roasted honey glazed carrots and parsnips. Delicious! And, I have to say, the best bit was definitely the gravy. So, so easy to make! It was definitely my best gravy ever and I hope you'll try it too. One quick note: the cooking time will depend on the size of your leg of lamb so start with 4.5 hours and go from there.
We had so much leftover that I was able to take some leftovers to work the next day just as they were. This dish was so tasty that we kept eating it as is so, as a result, we only managed to get one recipe out of the leftovers.
Recipe via www.recipetineats.com
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 4.5 - 5.5 hours
Serves: 8
Ingredients:
1.8kg Leg of Lamb
1 medium onion, quartered
1 stick of celery, halved
4-5 cloves of garlic
2 cups beef stock
3 cups water
Salt
Pepper
1-2 tbsp rosemary
2-3 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp flour
Method:
Preheat your oven to 170C / 335F (or 150C/300F for fan assisted ovens).
Next, place your garlic, onion and celery into your baking dish (make sure it has high enough sides to hold all the liquid!). Season your leg of lamb with salt, pepper and dried rosemary and then place it on top of the garlic, onion and celery with the meatier side facing down.
Combine your stock and water and then pour it into the baking dish making sure it distributes evenly around the lamb. Cover with foil and pop it in the oven for 4.5 hours.
After 4.5 hours, take the dish out of the oven and remove the foil. Turn the lamb over so that the meaty side faces up. Return the dish to the oven (uncovered) for 45 minutes to allow the meat to get nice and brown. When it's ready, take it out and move lamb to a serving plate.
To make the gravy: Strain the cooking liquid into a bowl and skim any excess fat from the surface. In a pot over medium heat, melt the butter and then add in the flour (make sure you use equal parts butter and flour). Whisk the butter and flour to make a roux and then slowly pour in the leftover cooking liquid. Let the liquid simmer until it has reached your preferred consistency.
Then, enjoy!
