Sunday 24 April 2011

Sunday morning



Much to my annoyance, I was awake at extremely stupid o'clock so have come down to see if a bit of up-ness makes a difference.

Yesterday was quite successful, food wise. The lamb was absolutely delicious and I will reproduce the recipe below, which I concocted after reading a number of suggestions online. For dessert I made a hot cross bun bread and butter pudding and that was rather tasty too.

This is how I did the lamb.
I put a very good sloosh of white wine into a roasting dish big enough to hold the leg of lamb (about 1 to 1.5 cm depth). Then I added a lamb stock cube, one carrot cut into chunks and one red onion peeled and cut into wedges and placed the lot in the oven which I'd just turned up to 180 C.
While that was all heating up, I prepared the lamb. Using my hands I smeared butter over the lamb, then did the same with some garlic puree, massaging it all in well (quite messt but therapeutic). Over the top I placed some sprigs of fresh rosemary and a good grinding of black pepper. I took the dish out of the oven, placed the leg of lamb over the wine and vegetables, covered the whole dish with some foil, making sure it was completely sealed and popped it back in the oven which I immediately turned down to about 160 C-ish.
That was it, really, until about four hours later. I checked and basted once, but it wasn't really necessary.
After about four hours or so I moved the lamb, now very tender, into another dish, removed the rosemary, turned the oven up to 200 C and crisped up the outside of the lamb for about 20 mins or so. There was plenty of delicious stock in the first dish and I made gravy with that by reducing it down a little and thickening it - that's all it needed.

It went down a treat, compliments all round, and plenty left over to make other stuff - hotpot, shepherds pie, lamb in orange sauce and the like!

The dessert was lifted wholesale from a Tesco recipe. The only difference was that I had some runny honey that was losing its runny so I warmed that up and used it instead of the castor sugar. You can find the recipe here.

Today is a celebration so it's all go for the hostess (me!). Lunch will be a barbecue (or mixed grill) which shouldn't be too much hassle. Tea will be leftovers! I've made a dozen cupcakes and iced them prettily. It's all go.

And now I am feeling tired again so maybe I can get back to sleep!


Photo: promise of Christmas!

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