I’m recovering slowly from this blasted UTI, but still not entirely out of the woods. But recovered enough to cook an experimental meal.

Special Roast Lamb
[This would also work brilliantly with pork.]

No list of ingredients, you can work that out from what I write!

We had a spare leg of lamb (the way you do!) and want the ffeezer space for Christmas. This is what I did — how you do it doesn’t matter as long as the meat remains in a single piece as you’ll be rolling it up later. The joint was about 2Kg before being boned.

I carefully cut down to the bone and worked a sharp boning knife around all the bones leaving a large flat piece of lamb. Trim off any excess fat and sinews. Do not throw the bones, fat etc. away!

Finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic and a small onion (red for preference). Mix with a small packet of stuffing mix, plus salt, pepper and mixed herbs as desired, and add hot water as instructed on the packet. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

At this stage a second pair of hands will come in useful. Put the stuffing on the flattened lamb and roll it up as best you can. Yes that’s right, it will fall apart, which is why you need that second pair of hands to hold it together during the next step.

Now wrap some Parma ham round the lamb and tie it with string to stop it falling apart. The Parma ham helps hold the lamb together, protects it from drying and adds a nice edge to the meat.

If you bone the lamb well this is what it should end up looking like,
only wrapped with Parma ham. I ain’t that good!
Place in a roasting tin and drizzle some olive oil over.

Cover with foil and cook in the oven at about 180C with fan assist (200C if no fan) for about 70-90 minutes. Any extra stuffing can also be popped in the oven.

When done leave to rest for 10 minutes, then serve in slices accompanied by jacket or roast potatoes and veg of your choice (we had steamed spinach), plus if desired some mushroom sauce.

— ooOoo —
Lamb Stock
Remember all those bones an trimmings? Well you can make some super lamb stock for risotto etc.
Take a casserole (cast iron is best) and into it throw a roughly chopped onion, a few cloves of garlic and whatever other veg you need to use up (I used a rather tired fennel) also roughly chopped. Sweat this with a little olive oil on the hob, for a few minutes. Then add all the lamb trimmings & bones, seasoning and some mixed herbs. Continue cooking for a few more minutes. Now add some white wine (or wine and water) to just cover the lamb/veg mix and pop in a low oven for a couple of hours. You should end up with some clean bones and a stock. Take out the bones and any remaining lumps of fat etc.; you might also want to skim the fat off the top. Et voilà … you have some lovely rich lamb stock just ready for soup or risotto.