Tender & flavorful Middle Eastern leg of lamb - A celebration specialty dish

this right here is an egyptian roast leg of lamb and after marinating for over 12 hours and cooking for almost four more it is insanely tender and flavorful in the middle east lamb is usually served as the centerpiece dish for most celebrations and nearly every country has a unique take on it today i wanted to show you this recipe which is really easy to put together and you probably already have most of the ingredients for it hey everyone i'm obi a home cook who wants to get you cooking authentic and delicious middle eastern food at home now this week i want to show you the beauty of roast leg of land on the old school egyptian way it's one of my all-time favorite dishes and the flavor is just to die for if you're in the middle of planning your christmas dinner this will be an amazing replacement for your usual centerpiece first i'll show you how to marinate and cook the leg of lamb so it comes out perfectly soft then we'll be making some delicious roast veggies that are an amazing dish all on their own so enough talk let's jump right in and make this let's first start off by making the marinade for the lamb leg it's a simple one that is made using a lot of onions the onions do two things first they flavor the meat with loads of savory flavor compounds and secondly they contain an enzyme protease that helps tenderize the meat to start we need to peel six to eight large onions so that we have one kilogram or two pounds of onion flesh when done these will be going into a blender or food processor so cut them down to a size that's manageable for yours for the recipe we'll also need a bunch of garlic about 10 to 12 cloves will do fine so it's easiest to just peel a full head we'll be using it in the marinade and also stuffing a bunch of them into the lamb leg itself once you've peeled your garlic slice them into slivers about three millimeters or an eighth of an inch thick except for four cloves next up add the onions into your blender or food processor and if they don't all fit you can put the rest in once it's blended also add in your four whole garlic cloves to season the marinade or simply be using one tablespoon of black pepper you can use the pre-ground stuff but we're blending this so it makes sense to use whole peppercorns for that freshly cracked black pepper flavor for salt we'll be adding in two tablespoons of fine cooking salt which sounds like a lot but it will essentially turn our marinade into a wet brine as well and don't worry not all of that salt will make it into the final dish finally i'm adding in about 100 milliliters or 3.3 fluid ounces of water which will just help the blending process get started all you need to do now is blitz this until it is very finely processed the downside of using a blender rather than a food processor is that you'll have to scrape down the sides of the jug a few times and might not be able to fit all your onions in at once keep blending it until you're left with something that looks like a milkshake you wouldn't want to drink your onion should be processed into a fine and liquidy paste i'd really recommend tasting this for salt and if it doesn't taste extremely salty to you you'll need to add more set it aside while we prepare the lamb when you are buying your lamb for this dish you have a few different options you can either go for a full lamb leg or a shoulder the leg is leaner and quite a bit larger while the shoulder has more fat and will end up more tender you also have a choice of going bone-in or de-boned which makes it easier to cut and serve what i've got is a bone-in shoulder to prepare it for marination i'm going to remove some of the surface fat you can ask your butcher to do this for you or if you're doing it yourself just use a really sharp knife my aim here is to expose some of the meat underneath the fat as the marinade can't penetrate it i'm also going to remove fat in areas where it seems quite excessive but you don't want to remove it all this is what the shoulder looked like when i was done trimming it with that done we can move on to marinading the lamb and the first thing we need to do is poke your landfill of holes in each hole we'll add in one or two whole peppercorns and a chunk of the sliced garlic from earlier you want to do this all over and then on the underside as well they'll all receive the same treatment of garlic and peppercorns and you should do about 15 to 20 of these over the surface of your lamb when done your lamb will look something like this to apply the marinade get a deep dish of some salt and place some of the marinade in it lay your lamb leg on top and press the marinade into the lamb you want to aim for full coverage of the joint this marinade is enough for a two and a half kilogram or five and a half pound bone-in lamb shoulder so scale it up for a larger one when you've finished coating the top and bottom yours should look something like this cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to marinade for a minimum of 12 hours my fridge really isn't big enough for this tray so i usually end up placing the lamb inside a ziploc bag instead the next day your lamb is ready to go into the oven i recommend taking it out of the fridge at least one hour beforehand there's only a couple of things that need doing before it goes in the oven first we need to remove all of the onion marinade from the meat use your hands to scrape it off and be sure to clear out the little nooks and crannies i'd also recommend using a paper towel to scrape any last stubborn bits of marinade off once it's been cleaned you can see how much the marinade penetrated the fat is now tinted yellow from the onions and the redness of the meat has faded now to bake it i will be using this deep roasting tray which has a wire rack that keeps the lamb from sitting on the base of the tray this helps prevent it from burning and sticking though you can easily accomplish the same thing by lining your tray with thick cut discs of onion place your lamb in the tray and then the last thing to do is grate nutmeg all over the meat you want a light dusting of it on the top and bottom sides so all that's left to do is preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius or 350 degrees fahrenheit and tightly cover our roasting dish with a sheet of aluminium foil and a quick tip if your foil isn't wide enough you can double the width of a sheet by placing two sheets on top of each other and folding the long edge over itself a few times place the sheet onto the roasting dish and crimp any excess foil over the edges so it forms as tight as seal as possible then when it's ready it should go into the oven for three to four hours and it will stay in there until a dinner knife can easily be poked into the meat while the lamb is cooking we can prepare some damn good roast vegetables for this we'll be using carrots potatoes and mini onions we'll start off by peeling and then slicing 500 grams or one pound of carrots into chunks about one centimeter or half an inch thick for the mini potatoes i have scrubbed 600 grams or 1.3 pounds of them clean the smaller ones i will be cooking whole and the larger ones will be cut in half you could use regular potatoes here and just cut them down to size then for the onions i am peeling 500 grams or one pound of miniature onions you can use shallots here instead if you can't find them when all of your vegetables are ready we can make their own marinade i'll start by pulling the lamb out of the oven at about the two hour mark and i'll add about 200 milliliters or 6.6 fluid ounces of water to the baking pan this will deglaze any juices that have dried onto it let it sit for a few minutes then using a spatula agitate the bits of dried on lamb juice when the liquid has darkened collect it and place the lamb back in the oven in my blender once more i placed one large onion which has been roughly chopped to that i'll add in 100 milliliters or 3.3 fluid ounces of the deglazed lamb juices as well as one teaspoon of salt and a quarter of a teaspoon of pepper blend it all together into a fine paste and then pour it out onto your vegetables i've placed them in a foil lined baking sheet then giving it all a very thorough mix once all your vegetables have been coated they should go into the same oven to bake for one hour so i place them in once the lamb has been in there for two and a half hours so that they finish at the same time now i'd recommend to check your lamb at two and a half and three hours for doneness by poking it with a knife once you feel it is almost as soft as you want it remove the foil and allow it to brown thoroughly on top after three and a half hours of cooking my lamb was finally done and i pulled it out of the oven it may look dark on camera but that's just the outermost layer of fat getting a deep browning as you can see i can easily poke my knife into the meat and there is very little resistance which is exactly what i wanted for the vegetables they have cooked through completely and softened the mixture we added to them has reduced and caramelized you should let the lamb rest for 15 to 30 minutes before carving and serving so that the juices in it can redistribute when you are ready you should cut it into slices about one centimeter or half an inch thick if you're using a bone in shoulder then you might want to wriggle the shoulder blade back and forth until you can pull it out this will make your life easier when carving it serve it up with the roast vegetables and one little tip that will make it absolutely stunning is to remove one of the carved slices so you can see the cross section of the lamb joint sit back and be sure to watch your guests faces as they dig into some of the best lamb of their lives so i've been drooling over this for an hour while i film all the b-roll and do thumbnails i've resisted long enough so it's time to dig in i've almost finished my plate that's how good this is the lamb is just so incredibly soft and moist it's been cooked so long that it melts in your mouth the marinade really gives the lamb an umami savory flavor while reducing the gaminess that lamb can sometimes have because it's cooked so long the flavors are really concentrated and it's the same story for the vegetables as well the onions carrots and potatoes are all incredibly soft while having a mouthwatering flavor from the onion mixture that was added to them i really hope you give this one a try as i'm certain you'll enjoy it if you enjoyed the video don't forget to leave a like or comment and share it with your friends and if you make this be sure to send me some photos that's it for now and i'll be back next week with another recipe you

Channel: Middle Eats

Views: 37,202

Keywords: Middle Eats, slow cooked lamb, roasted lamb shanks in oven, lamb recipes for dinner, Middle Eastern lamb, Middle Easter lamb leg, How to make Middle Eastern lamb, Middle Eastern lamb recipe, How to make Middle Eastern Lamb leg, Middle Eastern lamb leg recipe, Egyptian lamb leg, middle eastern leg of lamb marinade, middle eastern leg of lamb roast, how to cook leg of lamb in the oven, Egyptian Lamb, Egyptian leg of lamb, Middle Eastern roast lamb

Id: j7l_2r0Yz1Q

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020