Slow Cooked Greek Lamb Leg with Potatoes and Greek Salad
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Sunday roast energy, but make it Greek. This is a fabulous and very easy way to slow cook a whole leg of lamb but definitely plan to make this one on a weekend when you're at home as you need to allow 5 hours to prep and roast everything.
The leg is very simply marinated and studded all over with garlic and then slowly roasted in a liquid of stock, wine and lemon juice to keep it most. Towards the end of the roasting, the liquid turns gravy like and the potatoes are added and the heat turned up so they become tender and soak up all of the flavour whilst the lamb browns and becomes pull apart. I also blended the roasting liquid and turned it into a quick gravy that is great poured over the lamb. I also added a very simple Greek salad to serve alongside this as you need something fresh and zingy to cut through all of the richness of the lamb. You could also add some pita bread and turn these into gyros if you're feeding a crowd.
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Serves- 4-6 people
Ingredients- 18
Cooking Time- 5 hours (allow 4.5 hours roasting allow plus 30 minutes prep)
Skill Level- Easy
Ingredients
Lamb & Potatoes
1 leg of lamb approx 2-3kg. I cooked with a 2.8kg leg.
1 head of garlic (approx 150g), cloves peeled
¼ cup of olive oil
2 tbsp of salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 cups chicken stock, plus extra for the potatoes
1 cup white wine, plus extra for potatoes
Juice of 1 lemon
A few springs of your choice of herbs. I used rosemary, thyme and bay leaves
1-2 red onions, cut into segments
4 potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
Greek Salad
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
1 lebanese cucumber
1 capsicum, finely sliced
½ red onion, finely sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tablespoon of red wine vinegar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of dried oregano
1 slice (75g) of Greek feta
Method
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Place lamb leg into a roasting pan and pat dry with a paper towel. Use a small pairing knife to make approx 20 cuts into the lamb approx 3cm in length. Fill each hole with a garlic clove. If your cloves are large, simply cut in half or quarters to fit into the holes.
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Pour olive oil all over the lamb leg and massage it into the meat. Generously sprinkle over salt, pepper and oregano all over the leg.
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Pour in chicken stock, white wine and lemon juice into the roasting pan so that the â…“ lamb is submerged. Place red onion segments into the liquid as well as any remaining garlic cloves and any herbs you have on hand. I added in rosemary, thyme and bay leaves.
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Cover the leg and as much of the liquid with baking paper (this stops the liquid from evaporating as much) and then cover the whole of the roasting pan tightly with foil.
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Roast in the oven at 170 degrees celsius for around 3-4 hours. Pull out the lamb every hour to baste the leg with the roasting juices and check the progress. The cooking time will vary for each leg of lamb, however it should be nearly ready around the 3.5-4 hour mark. The lamb meat should be tender with the leg bone falling off into the liquid, the onions brown and jammy, the garlic soft, and the roasting liquid would have changed from a light yellow to a deep brown sauce.
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At this point, discard any fallen bones and remove any hardy herb stems or leaves. Nestle the potato wedges in the roasting sauce around the lamb. They should be mostly submerged in the liquid. If not, feel free to add some extra white wine, chicken stock or even water to submerge them a bit more.
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Place into the oven uncovered and turn up the oven to about 200 degrees celsius for 30-45 minutes. 15 minutes in, gently toss the potatoes to make sure they are evenly covered in the liquid. The potatoes will absorb the roasting juices and become darker in colour and tender, whilst the lamb will brown on the outside and the roasting liquid will reduce and become more of a jammy gravy.
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Whilst the lamb and potatoes are in their last 15 minutes of cooking, prepare the salad by placing tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum and red onion into a bowl or platter. Cover in the olive oil, salt, red wine vinegar and oregano and toss so everything is coated. Spread out onto a plate and place the slice of feta in the centre. Top the feta with an extra glug of olive oil and sprinkle of oregano and it’s ready to serve.
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Remove lamb and potatoes from the oven and place lamb onto a platter. You can either arrange the potatoes around the lamb if there is enough space or serve the potatoes onto a separate platter.
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Spoon the residual roasting juices into a food processor and blend until smooth. The consistency will be quite thick so feel free to add a few tablespoons of warm water or until you get a thinner gravy like consistency. You can also season with salt, pepper, sugar or even lemon juice if you need to balance it, however, I left it as is.
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Serve family style for everyone to help themselves and make a plate. Enjoy!
Watch the Process
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