SMOKE LAMB ROAST RECIPES

Steps:

• 1. Fire up your wood-fired oven an hour or so before you’re ready to cook (you can easily adapt this recipe for a barbecue or regular oven – use your instincts).
  2. When the oven temperature reaches 200°C (check with a thermometer) and the smoke and flames have died down, you can start cooking.
  3. Peel and bash the garlic with a generous pinch of sea salt in a pestle and mortar, then add the dried oregano and enough olive oil to loosen the mixture.
  4. Cut the lamb into 3cm chunks, then place in a large bowl. Season with black pepper, then add the marinade, and toss to coat.
  5. Halve, deseed and cut the peppers into chunks, and cut the lemons into wedges, then thread onto 8 skewers, alternating between lamb, pepper, bay leaves and lemon wedges.
  6. Lay the skewers on a baking tray and roast in the hot oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until charred, sticky and cooked through, turning occasionally. Keep an eye on them – rotate the tray so that all the kebabs get a turn of being close to the fire and pull them back a little if the bread starts to burn.
  7. Pick and roughly chop the parsley leaves, then scatter over the kebabs. Delicious served up with flatbreads, a dollop of Greek yoghurt and some sliced cucumber.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 120C/fan 100C/gas ½. Put your largest lidded casserole on the hob and brown the seasoned leg of lamb on all sides - do this very thoroughly until it is a good dark brown as it will not brown during the cooking. (If you don't do it now, it will end up beige.) If the lamb sticks, add a drizzle of oil - legs of lamb differ. Allow 10 mins on a high heat and put on the cooker fan to remove the smoke. Pour away any fat that has collected in the bottom of the pan.
• Throw in the vegetables, followed by the wine and stock. Season and bring to the boil, then clap on the lid and put in the oven. Bake for 7 hrs, turning twice. After 5 hrs the meat will be cooked and offer no resistance to the knife.
• There is no need to rest the meat when cooked in this way, but to finish the sauce, transfer the meat and vegetables to a serving dish. Strain the sauce into a jug and pour or blot away the fat with kitchen paper. Pour the sauce into a pan then boil the liquid hard to reduce by a quarter, by which time it will be rich and flavoursome. Adjust seasoning, add the Armagnac if you wish, and serve alongside the lamb, which should be served with a spoon, a la cuillère as the French call it.