Egyptian roast leg of lamb with roast vegetables
Middle Eats · ♥ 2.5K likes · 105.6K views · 11 min video
Read about shoulder (roast, chops, stew meat) in the BrightCulinary Book
Timestamp
Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 1 kg large onions
- 10–12 cloves garlic
Peel 6 to 8 large onions to give a kilogram of onion flesh and cut them to a size the blender can manage. The onions flavour the meat and contain protease, an enzyme that tenderises it.
The onion marinade and why it works
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp fine cooking salt
- 100 ml water
Blend the onions with the four whole garlic cloves, a tablespoon of whole black peppercorns, two tablespoons of fine salt and about 100 ml of water until it is a fine, liquidy paste. Taste it: if it is not extremely salty, add more.
Trim some of the surface fat off the shoulder to expose the meat underneath, since the marinade cannot penetrate fat. Do not remove it all.
Choosing and trimming the lamb
- whole peppercorns
Poke the lamb full of holes, about 15 to 20 over the surface and the underside, and press one or two whole peppercorns and a piece of the slivered garlic into each.
- 2½ kg bone-in lamb shoulder
Put some marinade in a deep dish, lay the joint on top and press the marinade in for full coverage top and bottom.
Take the lamb out of the fridge at least an hour before it goes in the oven.
Scraping off the marinade
Scrape all the onion marinade off with your hands and a paper towel, clearing the nooks and crannies.
Set the lamb on a wire rack in a deep roasting tray, or on thick cut discs of onion, and grate nutmeg lightly over the top and bottom.
Nutmeg, foil and a long roast
- nutmeg
Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and cover the roasting dish tightly with foil, crimping the excess over the edges for as tight a seal as possible.
Roast 3 to 4 hours, until a dinner knife pokes in easily. Check at two and a half and three hours.
- 500 g carrots
- 600 g mini potatoes
- 500 g miniature onions
Peel and slice the carrots into 1 cm chunks, scrub the mini potatoes and halve the larger ones, and peel the miniature onions.
- 200 ml water
- 1 whole large onion
At the two hour mark pull the lamb out, add about 200 ml of water to the pan to deglaze, let it sit a few minutes, agitate the dried-on juices with a spatula, collect the darkened liquid and put the lamb back.
- 100 ml deglazed lamb juices
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
Blend one roughly chopped large onion with 100 ml of the deglazed juices, a teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of pepper into a fine paste.
Pour it over the vegetables in a foil lined baking sheet, mix thoroughly, and bake one hour in the same oven — put them in when the lamb has been in two and a half hours so they finish together.
Once the lamb is almost as soft as you want, remove the foil and let it brown thoroughly on top.
Rest 15 to 30 minutes before carving so the juices redistribute, then cut into slices about 1 cm thick. With a bone-in shoulder, wriggle the shoulder blade out first.
Serve with the roast vegetables, and remove one carved slice so the cross section of the joint shows.