Daves Braised Lamb

A tasty dish that is prepared in advanced and left to cook in the oven whilst you enjoy the party!

1. 1

   Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
   
   ideally the night before but even a few hours before you cook it, put the leg in a sealed plastic bag with the following mix: in a bowl, mix together the zest and juice of lemon, all of the chopped garlic, and most of the rosemary (chop it up), leaving a few intact sprigs for presentation later. put into the bag with the leg, seal it and leave in the fridge until you're ready to cook it.
   
   Put the roasting tin that you're using on the hob and get some oil smoking on high heat, take the leg out of the bag, season with salt and pepper and brown it off in the oil on all sides. Add the onions to the roasting tin and brown them off too, then add marinading guck from the plastic bag and cook for a minute or two, but be careful not to burn it. Add the bottle of wine and if needed, enough stock so that the leg is just more than half submerged. Bring to boil, then take off the heat and cover completely with tented foil. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and cook for at least 3.5 hours for a whole leg and 2.5 hours for a half leg, flipping the leg half way to keep moist. Generally the longer the better though. If the braising liquid reduces so much that the leg is getting dry, add some more stock to top it up.
   
   for the gravy...
   
   When finished cooking, carefully remove the leg and but in a bowl or dish and cover tightly with foil - it will keep warm like that for ages. Sieve the remaining braising liquid into a sauce pan, season and add corn flour to thicken if desired (mix the corn flour with cold water first).