Despite having gone mostly for shoulder in the recent past, we decided to celebrate Easter with leg of lamb and started with thinking about where to get it from. Manor Green Road, Upper High Street or Borough Market? The first two both suffered from the disadvantage that one had to order, one could not select one's leg for oneself, off the counter or from the bar above. But Manor Green Road was nearest and they had sold us some good pork, so we decided to try them for leg of lamb. The risk was that they would cut out bone which I would rather have left in - possibly using the excuse that that was how it had come in from the wholesaler.
In addition to the leg, I also asked them to do what they could in the way of something bony for the gravy, perhaps neck.
In the event, we got 6lbs 8oz of leg, with leg bones left in but the hip bones taken out. Which meant that they could do a fancy job with the string. I think that this butcher - part of the Appleford family of butchers - is quite keen on trimming and tidying, in what I take to be the French way of doing things. Another oddity is that checking this afternoon, they are to be found on Facebook and various online business directories, but they don't have their own website.
Furthermore, they appear from documents filed at reference 1 to have been dissolved, perhaps bankrupt. What is going on?
Back with the meat, not only was there no hip bone, there was no neck either. But I was able to take a shank which I thought might do rather better - if a slightly expensive way to make gravy. Underneath the joint, to the left, in the snap above.
The plan was to boil up the gravy the day before the festival and get that bit of the work out of the way. So this kicked off at 13:30. The shank plus carrot, celery, parsnip, onion and some left over boiled rice. Plus, in the absence of rosemary, some dried marjoram. Topped up the water during the afternoon. Then at 18:00, removed the meat and drained off the liquor from the mush.
Skimmed most of the fat off the top of the liquor the following morning, after it had gone cold overnight.
We took the rather soggy, still warm meat in the white bread which I had baked for the purpose that very day. Not much like good English white bread from bakers of old, but in a class of its own and entirely eatable. While I think that BH went for the warm meat rather more than I did. A bit overcooked to my mind, but then, it was a by-product of the gravy, not intended as a dish in itself. But an overcooking which was taken into account in the soup which followed a week or so later, as reported at reference 2.
The next item on the agenda was the cooking method for the leg. I have rarely been completely satisfied with my - admittedly occasional - cooking of leg of lamb, never having achieved the pink-on-the-inside-brown-on-the-outside that roasters in restaurants sometimes manage. I usually chicken out and go for the Radiation low temperature method which suggests around 30 minutes to the pound - which in this case would mean in at 10:00 for 13:00 at 160°C, including a spot of resting.
But before going for that, I did consult the precedents that there were in the archive, all bar one of which was shoulder and the only leg - actually a double leg - was near fifteen years ago! I remember a discussion in TB à propos of that occasion about whether two legs needed twice as long as one leg. One supposed not, but more experience would have been helpful. I was also reminded that a shoulder can come in bigger than a leg.
Then tempted again by the Radiation high temperature method, that is to say 200°C, but rejected, partly on the grounds that this would be too high for the roast roots, but mainly on the grounds of high risk for a state occasion. Maybe I should start using the meat thermometer rather than skewer and eye?
So in at 10:00 at 160°C it was. Looked in at 12:15 and drained some fat off. Turned the oven up to 175°C. Stirred the roots - cleaned but not peeled - around in some of the fat, and put them in a few minutes later, in their own tray, underneath the lamb.
Turned the oven off at 13:00, at which point I was putting the finishing touches to the gravy. Having roux'd up a bit of the fat and stirred in a good proportion of the liquor from the night before. Gravy dipping with white very good, if a little hurried, as the others wanted their lunch by this point.
On the big plate.
Forks down 13:15. And I am pleased to say the greens stood the extra time well. Snapped above on my small plate, before the addition of the roots.
Nothing fancy about the meat and if not pink inside, it was still moist, and it went down well enough. Did about two thirds of it at the first sitting.
The roots were a little overcooked and a little greasy. Maybe I should have used less fat and cooked them on a grid, rather than in the baking tray - visible behind the red wine in the snap above.
BH had been busy the day before, so pineapple upside cake with syllabub on the side to follow. We did all of the cake and half of the syllabub.
All washed down with several bottles of the Fleurie I like from Waitrose. Plus a spot of Calva a little later on.
As it turned out, no fresh roast meat sandwiches on the day, despite the special baking of white bread. Aside, that is, from polishing off the gravy shank for breakfast.
The next day, Easter Monday, we took some of the cold lamb with bubble & squeak, this last augmented with a spot of chopped onion. Hot gravy on cold white bread.
Still a good bit of meat to go after. Squeak snapped below.
And we learned that syllabub was not quite right for bread pudding. This last being made from the brown left over from before the white.
At which point the lamb vanishes from the photographic record.
After a break on the Tuesday, we more or less polished the lamb off on the Wednesday, making a total of eight adult portions plus odds and ends, so not as expensive as at first might appear. Taken, once again, with boiled potatoes, cabbage, swede, carrots, cabbage and gravy. Orange melon for dessert.
Not for the first time, we pronounced ourselves well satisfied with cold meat taken with hot vegetables. Not to be sneezed at at all. So, all in all, not bad at all.
PS 1: the triffid, that is to say the aloe, pretty much in flower for the big day, even if the camera was not on top form. I didn't think to make a table decoration out of it, but I have been reminded by the pallor of the leaves to water it occasionally.
PS 2: who can get more at's and all's into a sensible sentence?
PS 3: having had our festival of meat, I was interested to read in the Guardian the other day of an upcoming festival of nimbies. The National Grid need to build a power line from Norwich to Tilbury - mostly above ground on pylons - part of the rather overdue overhaul of said grid - and took at least two full pages in a recent number of the Guardian. Public display of plans all over East Anglia, invitations to comment and no doubt public meetings. The Confederation of British Nimbies is cranking up for major action. Glad I don't work for the community relations part of the National Grid.
The tunnel part of the line concerns Dedham Vale, I believe a latent feature of the post to be found at reference 4.
References
Reference 1: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11189578.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/sheep-soup.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/03/comic-pigeons.html. Last notice of the triffid/aloe.
Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/constable.html.
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