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This should serve 4 or even 5! You may want to also serve it with some autumnal vegetables (such as swede, parsnip, carrot, cauliflower, brocolli or spinach) although I haven't included details of how to cook them here.
Ingredients
Lamb
- half a leg of lamb
- 1 large glass red wine
- loads of rosemary, preferably fresh
- 3—4 cloves of garlic
- salt and pepper
- vegetable oil
Roast Potato
- 4—6 large potatos
- chopped rosemary, preferably fresh (optional)
- flour
- salt and pepper
- goose fat or another fat or oil
Sausages
- 12 chipolatas or thin sausages
- 12 rashers streaky bacon
Yorkshire Puddings
- 2 eggs
- 100g flour
- 50g butter/margerine, melted
- 100mL water
- 50mL milk
- a pinch of salt
- goose fat or another fat or oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Place the lamb leg onto a baking tray. Poke about 12 holes into the lamb with a sharp knife. Insert garlic and rosemary (a sliver — about ¼ — of a clove of garlic and 3—4 leaves of rosemary) into each hole. Pour over about half the glass of the wine and drizzle with oil. Spinkle some salt and pepper on.
Put the lamb in the oven. It will need to stay in for 30 minutes, plus an additional 30 minutes for each 500g of meat — for example, a 2kg joint of lamb will need to be cooked for 150 minutes, or 2½ hours.
This should give you a long time to prepare the trimmings while the lamb itself is cooking. Boil a saucepan of salted water. Peel the potatoes and tut the into chunks — a large potato should be cut into 4 to 6 pieces. Boil the potatoes for 5—10 minutes, until partly cooked, but still quite solid. Drain the potatoes and return to the empty saucepan. Smear 2—3 tabespoons of fat on a baking tray and place in the oven to heat. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of seasoned flour and rosemary onto the potatoes, place lid on saucepan and shake the pan to coat the potatoes in flour and make the edges “fluffy”. When the fat in the oven starts spitting or smoking, put the potatoes into the baking tray and cook for 45 minutes to one hour.
(Contrary to popular belief, potato skins are not “healthy” and should not be left on. Potatoes contain solanine, a toxin which can be deadly in high enough doses. Most of the toxins in potatoes are in or near the skin, so peeling the potatoes makes them healthier.)
Prick the sausages with a fork and then fry them in the oil until they are cooked to the centre, but not too brown on the outside. Allow the sausages to cool until you can handle them. Now wrap a rasher of streaky bacon around each sausage. Open the oven and carefully place the bacon-wrapped sausages on top of the roast potato. This will allow the potato to absorb some of the flavours of the meat and will cook the bacon. While the oven is open, take the lamb out.
Pour the juices that have collected in the bottom of the lamb's tray into a saucepan. Now pour the rest of the wine over the lamb and put it back in the oven. Add to the gravy saucepan a little extra water, and if desired, a crushed clove of garlic and a little red wine and heat slowly. Add water occasionally to prevent this gravy from drying out.
About 10 minutes before the lamb is ready, put the eggs, flour, butter, milk, water and salt into a blender and mix them together. You now have batter. Grease a Yorkshire pudding tray and heat in the oven.
When the lamb is ready, remove from the oven and cover with a foil blanket to keep warm and allow the meat to relax. Turn the oven up to 230°C and remove the pudding tray. Pour a couple of tablespoons of batter into each of the receptacles in the pudding tray and return to the oven. While the oven is open, remove the potatoes and sausages. The Yorkshire puddings will need to cook for 10—15 minutes at a very high temperature.
While the puddings are cooking, carve the lamb and plate the meal. The gravy may be thickened with a little cornflour if desired. When the puddings are ready, add them to the plates and serve immediately.
