Dateline: April 12, 2020 Lamb bone's connected to the.... oops nothing else

I had a leg of lamb I managed to score from Wegman's.  What a boon to Brooklyn that store is.  Wide aisles, nice lighting and a BAR upstairs!  Someone was thinking when they were designing this store.

Marinade

1 large preserved lemon, peel, pulp, seeds and some of the brine

7 cloves of garlic peeled

3 small twigs of rosemary, stripped from stem

handful of fresh parsley

hot pepper flakes

olive oil

Blend all together until it makes a loose dressing.  Taste, if not what you want, doctor it up to your liking.

Choose a large covered pan that can fit the lamb comfortably in it without too much left over space.  Cut deep slits all over the lamb and slather on the marinade and poking it down into all the slits and nooks and crannies.  My leg came with a nice fat cap and was semi-boned and tied.  I didn't want to have to tie it up again, so I cut the slits around the strings and put it into the cavity where the femur used to be.  Sprinkle with ground pepper, no salt at this point, the lemons and brine will take care of that.

Let marinate for a couple of hours, or over night.

The Cook

Preheat oven to 300° F and put the covered lamb into the pot.  Add some white wine.  If you want, you can raise the lamb up on a rack or a bed of thickly sliced onions.  Check on it in about 1.5 hours.  I like my lamb leg well done, but lamb chops medium rare.  Don't be a hater.

white wine and/or chicken stock

2 large onions cut into 1/2" slices
2 twigs of rosemary

Add onions and rosemary to the pot now

Add more liquid if necessary.  Taste to see if you need any salt or other seasonings.  Cover again, and let ride for another hour or so.  Timing is until the leg is easily pierced with a fork without resistance.  

Check liquid level and remove lid, increase temp to 500° F to crisp up outside fat.  Alternately, you could blow torch it as well if you didn't want to worry about the oven.  You could also brown the top of the lamb at the outset of the cooking process.  Whatever floats your boat.

Remove the lamb when it is done and set aside tented with foil.  De-fat the liquid that is in the pan.  A fat separator works great here.  Leave the onions in the pan and ladle out the liquid.  After defatting return clarified liquid to the onions and blitz with an immersion blender until smooth.  This sauce will not be a typical brown color, it is kind of a riff on a soubise, but instead of a bechamel you are using the onions as a thickening agent.

I made brussel sprouts that I braised with pancetta cubes and onions before deglazing with chicken stock and a dash of white wine.

Then there were the mashed potatoes.  OMG, I steamed the potato chunks in the instant pot, then riced the cooked potatoes back into the cleaned instant pot and added butter, cream, and some water.  These were excellent mashers, if I say so myself.  Very rich, but really had a potato flavor that was not all watered down.

Nota Bene:

This is not my usual lamb recipe.  It is just something I thought about trying and improvised.  The meat had really good flavor, but as Bill pointed out it was a tad dry and he is not a big fan of lemon flavor.  I, on the other hand, really like lemon and thought that it might end up being too lemony.  Thankfully, that was not the case.  The sauce helped with the dryness and was not overly lemon flavored.  Bill even liked the brussel sprouts!

What would I do differently next time?  I would probably use less brine and less rosemary.