April 2004 - Roast Lamb with Potatoes, Onions, and Red Peppers

Lamb (Cordero) is considered a delicacy in Spain so is expensive and should be cooked and eaten with respect. Most often seen is the cordero pascual, spring lamb. The cuts are pierna - leg, paletilla - shoulder, pecho - breast, costillas - ribs, and pezcuezo - neck. You will also find chopped lamb and cordero picada - minced lamb. Occasionally you will see cordero lechal - milk or baby lamb, which has a fine delicate flavour. Normally this is sold as delantero - forequarter with shoulder and trasero - hind leg quarter. The sheep are smaller than English, Welsh and New Zealand varieties so, any joint with a bone has less meat than you might expect.

Ingredients - Seves 4

1.5 kg leg of lamb
5 ml olive oil
salt
ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, cut into slivers
juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon paprika
250 ml vegetable stock
2 large red peppers de seeded, cut into 1 cm strips
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 large potatoes, peeled, cut into 0.5cm slices

Method

Preheat the oven to 230C (Mark 8)

Make deep slits in the lamb and insert slivers of garlic. Make sure the garlic is not visible or it will burn. Put the lamb on a plate. Rub all over with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the lemon juice over the lamb. Set aside.

Mix the parsley, rosemary, thyme, and paprika into the vegetable stock.

Place all the peppers on the bottom of a roasting tin then the onion and finish with a layer of potato.

Pour the stock mix over the vegetables. Season with salt and black pepper. Place the lamb on top and pour over the juices from the plate.

Put the lamb in the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 190C (Mark 5) and continue cooking for 15 minutes per 450g for pink lamb, 25 minutes per 450g if you like your lamb well done.

At the end of the cooking time if the top layer of potatoes is golden brown and a knife meets no resistance the vegetables are ready. If not put the lamb to rest and the roasting tin back in the oven for a few minutes.