Revolvingly Good Lamb

Finally - a gorgeous, warm, sunny and perfect Barbeque Day. Time to try out the new barbeque........












Mediterranean Lamb Marinade

5-7 lbs lamb joint - preferably no bone, rolled and tied
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp onion salt
1 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix all ingredients and marinade lamb for 4-6 hours or longer. Don't chuck the marinade away once you are done, since you will need it when cooking the lamb.

Preheat barbeque to a medium heat - you want to cook the lamb with an indirect heat, nice and slowly, so that it stays nice and tender. Before skewering your lamb, pan sear each side of the joint over high heat to seal in all those lovely juices. Then skewer the lamb on the rotisserie and place on barbeque. Turn on rotisserie and watch the joint go round and round and round and round...... Once you are bored with this, go find a nice cool drink and relax in the sun. All you have to do now is come back every 20 - 30 minutes to baste the lamb with your marinade. It will take around 2-3 hours, depending on how hot your barbeque is. We left our's until the internal temperature was 145 degrees F - gives medium rare lamb that is still nice and pink in the centre. Make sure you let the joint rest for 20 minutes or so before carving.

While waiting for the lamb, you have lots of time to drink, chat, beat your friends at poker - we won a truck, but then felt sorry for R. since he had no way to get home. You also have time to make some beautiful roast potatoes - my absolute favourite way to do potatoes, possibly because it is probably the unhealthiest way to do potatoes. Oh well.......

Yummylicious Roast Potatoes

However many potatoes you want
A small amount of flour
Salt and Pepper
Lots of oil

Peel and quarter potatoes. Boil some salted water in a large pot and cook potatoes for 5 minutes. Drain, then bung the potatoes in a bag with the flour and seasonings. Shake, shake, shake until the potatoes are covered in the flour. Now you need to heat some oil in a pan - I used the oil left over from searing the lamb, since it had lots of tasty bits in it. Fry the potatoes until they start to turn golden. After the boiling and the frying comes the baking. You need to do this at a fairly high temp - around 400 degrees F and it is very important to get the oil very hot before you add the potatoes - if you don't, your potatoes will stick to the bottom of the pan and you will swear a lot when you can't get them out. Pop the potatoes into the oven and cook for around 1 hour - I turn mine over after about 40 minutes.

There you have it - the tenderest lamb I have ever tasted and the best ever roast potatoes.

Many thanks to R. for providing the marinated lamb and to D. for the wonderful barbeque. It took a while to get it together, but it was worth it.

I am now going to find some thermal underwear and I am very happy I bought that down jacket last week - it was sleeting yesterday and they are forecasting snow for this weekend. Come on global warming, I am waiting.......