Our Favourite Roast Lamb

This is our family's absolute favourite way to have roast lamb. I have no idea where this recipe came from originally, only that it was my favourite right from a child. I don't even have it written down anywhere (well until now!) I just know it all off by heart. What I love about this meal is that you cook the meat, veg and gravy altogether in one fell swoop! It's delicious with roast or new potatoes.


Glazed Lamb with bacon
Serves around 4
Takes 30 minutes to prepare, 2 hours to cook

Ingredients
Leg of lamb
Fresh rosemary
Two packs of smoked bacon
Jar of apricot jam
1 onion (chopped)
Bag of carrots (peeled and chopped into rounds)
Chicory (chopped finely)
1 pint stock (lamb or vegetable)


Method

1. Fry up the onion, chicory and carrots together until softened. Put them into a large deep metal baking tray and pour the stock over them.

2. Sit the leg of lamb on top of them. Cut slits all the way along the leg of lamb horizontally and put a sprig of rosemary and a slice of bacon into each slit.

3. Cover the whole leg with the rest of the bacon, cover the whole tray with tinfoil and pop in a preheated oven (180) for 1 hour.

4. After an hour remove the foil and cover the whole leg (over the bacon) with pretty much all of the jar of jam. Pop back into the oven for another hour (or so, it may take less time), stirring the vegetables beneath occasionally.



The bacon on top will turn black, don't worry this is what is meant to happen! The black crispy bits are the best bits :P When you come to serve, lift the lamb out of the pan onto a serving plate, let it rest for 15 minutes or so and then lift off the crispy bacon to carve the lamb beneath. Lift out the vegetables with a slotted spoon and pour the stock into a jug to be the gravy.

It's so good that I totally failed to get a photo of it all cooked before it got eaten! Maybe I can slot one in later as we have this for Sunday lunch quite often. Yum yum!