David McMillan cooks his réveillon lamb to tender submission. This take on his dish skips the truffle but adds navy beans to soak up all of that rich flavour in the bottom of the pan.
Servings: 8
Ready Time: 7 hours, 15 minutes
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups dry navy beans
1 5-to-6-lb lamb leg, bone in
4 cloves garlic, peeled (2 of them cut into long pieces each)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tbsp kosher salt, approximately
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
3 onions, sliced
5 carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 ribs celery, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 bay leaves
2 cups water, approximately
1 tbsp tomato paste
Method
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Place dry beans in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Set aside.
Remove lamb leg from wrapping and place on a work surface. Using a sharp knife, cut small slits (about 1-inch deep) all over leg and insert cut pieces of garlic. In a small bowl, combine olive oil, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper. Mix into a thick paste and rub paste onto surface of lamb leg, on all sides.
Place remaining whole garlic cloves, along with onions, carrots and celery, in the bottom of a roasting pan just larger than the leg. Season vegetables lightly with salt and pepper. Add bay leaves and about 1 cup water to bottom of pan. (You want enough water to generously cover bottom of the pan but not so much that everything is floating.) Place lamb on vegetables and roast 1 hour.
Remove roasting pan from oven and reduce heat to 280 F. Drain beans and add to bottom of pan, along with about 1/2 cup extra water to just cover them, if needed. Stir tomato paste into bottom of pan and return everything to oven. Continue roasting for seven hours, checking to make sure bottom of pan doesn’t dry out and adding water by the 1/2 cupful if it does. About halfway through roasting, grasp leg by the bone and rotate so bottom side faces up. Continue roasting until lamb is deeply browned on all sides and beans are very tender. Drain liquid from bottom of roasting pan, skim fat and serve as pan sauce alongside lamb, beans and vegetables.