3 hrs 30 mins
Showing Off
serves 8
About the recipe
This is a roast dinner like you’ve never seen before. Gnarly lamb is studded with pops of Mediterranean flavours, crispy potatoes are tossed with soft, ember-roasted onions, and there’s the most incredible myrtle pesto to top it all off. Rotisserie and barbecuing is the best (and original!) way to cook meat, so you’ve got to give this a try.
Ingredients
1 x 2.5kg higher-welfare leg of lamb or hogget, aitch bone removed
4 cloves of garlic
4 mixed green and black olives, stone in
1 fresh red chilli
2 jarred roasted red peppers
2 sprigs of rosemary, plus extra to serve
2 sprigs of mint
½ a lemon
1 x 50g tin of anchovy fillets in oil, from sustainable sources
HERB OIL
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
optional: 2 anchovy fillets in oil, from sustainable sources
½ a lemon
extra virgin olive oil
½ a bunch of fresh woody herbs (15g), such as thyme, oregano, rosemary
MYRTLE PESTO
1 bunch of fresh myrtle (30g)
1 small clove of garlic
100g pistachios
extra virgin olive oil
50g pecorino or Parmesan cheese
1 lemon
CRISPY POTATOES
6 red onions
2kg red-skinned potatoes
10 cloves of garlic
extra virgin olive oil
Top Tip
When lighting your fire or barbecue for this recipe, it’s important to have three zones: a really hot zone of burning wood or charcoal for aggressive heat, a medium heat zone where the fuel has burnt down to coals, and a gentler low heat zone where those coals have eventually burnt down to ash.
Method
- Remove the lamb from the fridge 1 hour before you want to cook to let it come up to room temperature. Once it’s come up to temperature, pierce the lamb skin at an angle with a sharp pointed knife 6 or 8 times at random around the leg, then open up the incisions by poking your fingers down them to make a bit of space.
- Peel and finely slice the garlic, squash and destone the olives, finely slice the chilli (deseed, if you like) and slice the peppers into long thin strips. Strip the leaves off the rosemary sprigs and pick the mint leaves. Use a speed-peeler to remove strips of peel from the lemon, then squeeze its juice into the anchovy tin (or mix with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil). Pour the lemony oil all over the lamb, rubbing it into the meat.
- Wrap a strip of red pepper around a slice of garlic and chilli, along with a piece of lemon peel and the herb leaves to create a little bundle of joy, then stuff it into a hole. Repeat with the remaining ingredients, then season from a height with a generous pinch of black pepper.
- To make the herb oil, strip the rosemary and thyme leaves into a pestle and mortar and bash together, along with the anchovy fillets, if using. Squeeze in the lemon juice and muddle in 6 tablespoons of oil. Make a herb brush by tying the woody herbs to the end of a wooden spoon with string.
- When you’re ready to cook, build a firepit and get a clockwork rotisserie ready (see the video above) or light a barbecue (see tip). Thread the lamb onto the skewer of a rotisserie and fasten it at both ends, or thread onto a large metal skewer.
- Set the skewer into the rotisserie no higher than 60cm from the coals (ideally about 40cm) over your medium heat zone and cook for 2 hours for blushing medium-rare meat, or 2 and a half hours for medium. You’ll have to manage your fire as the meat cooks, adding the odd piece of wood or coal to maintain the temperature and keep the heat as even as possible. Use the herb brush to baste with the herb oil every 30 minutes or so.
- Place the unpeeled onions directly into the ash, ensuring they have plenty of it around and on top of them, and cook alongside the lamb for 2 hours, or until tender.
- Meanwhile, make the pesto and cook the potatoes. For the pesto, pick the myrtle leaves into a pestle and mortar and bash to a paste with a pinch of sea salt. Peel and bash in the garlic, then pound in the pistachios until fine. Muddle in 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, finely grate in the cheese and squeeze in the juice from a ¼ of the lemon. Stir together, then season to perfection and tweak to your liking.
- Wash the potatoes and cut into 3cm chunks. Parboil in a large pan of boiling salted water with the whole unpeeled garlic cloves for 6 minutes. Drain the potatoes and garlic, then place in a wide, low-sided pan directly over the coals with 2 tablespoons of oil.
- Once the onions are tender, carefully remove them from the ashes and leave to cool slightly. Once cool enough to handle, peel them and remove the root, then roughly chop and stir into the potatoes and cook for 45 minutes, or until the potatoes are crispy all over, stirring occasionally.
- Remove the lamb from the rotisserie (or barbecue) and leave to rest on a platter for 30 minutes before carving, then serve with a dollop of myrtle pesto, the potatoes, a seasonal green salad and an extra sprinkling of fried rosemary leaves, if you like.
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