Baking a lamb leg is not an easy task. This can cause difficulties not only for beginners, but even experienced cooks. If you are still seduced by the idea of cooking a lamb leg in the oven, then use this recipe. With it you will not only make a wonderful tasty dish, but you will also be able to surprise the guests so that they will remember your treats for a long time.
How delicious to bake a leg of lamb
In this recipe, we propose to immediately kill two birds with one stone: bake meat and make shurpa. To do this, you will need:
- one leg of lamb;
- for minced meat: onion head, tomatoes (mashed potatoes, canned tomatoes in their own juice), lard, spices, sugar, salt;
- any fresh vegetables and water - for shurpa.
Start by cutting meat. Cut the leg, remove the veins, part of the films from the muscle tissue and the femur from it. In a baked leg, it is not needed. Before baking, it is customary to stuff the meat with carrots and garlic. Due to this, it acquires an additional taste and aroma. In addition, salt is laid, since just pickling a large piece of meat just outside is not enough, inside it will remain fresh. To do this, we removed the bone from the leg: a cavity was formed in which you can lay the filling of vegetables.
Important point
Try to avoid stuffing with cereals and potatoes, as they tend to absorb all meat juices. The liquid released from the meat will serve for other purposes. We need vegetable juice to saturate mutton with its taste.
Cooking Stuffing
The filling can be made from anything: mint, apples, raisins, quinces. But let's take the simplest vegetables: tomatoes, onions and carrots. This combination always gives a good taste. Additionally, add lard to vegetables. It can be bought separately, as well as cut off excess from the upper leg. Do not completely remove fat; a small amount should remain to prevent the meat from drying out. Cut the fat into pieces, put them in a pan and wait until the necessary amount of fat is melted. It should be enough to fry the onions. Salo should not be brought to the state of cracklings, but you do not need to remove it from the minced meat - let it remain in the pan. As soon as the onion begins to brown, lay the chopped carrots. Salt a little, sprinkle with seasonings. Skin the tomatoes, cut into pieces and add to the pan. Wait until they are lightly roasted. Let the smell of raw tomatoes go away. After this, pour a little boiling water or broth into the pan. Put it out, try the salt. If the tomatoes have added much acid flavor, put a pinch of sugar.
We stuff and prepare the leg of lamb
After the minced lamb leg is ready, let it cool. Cool the filling to such a state that the fat in it is frozen. In this state, it is much easier to put the minced meat in the meat. Edges can be sewn up. Before baking a lamb leg, it should be tied with thread, so that during cooking it does not change its shape. Place the prepared meat on the grill in the oven. Place a bowl of chopped vegetables topped with boiling water down. Salt. During cooking, boiling water should gradually evaporate. Since the walls of the oven are hot, steam will not collect on them, but will concentrate on the foot, which will prevent it from drying out. Fat will begin to drip from the meat, which will be collected in the lower tank. As a result, you get a wonderful broth with baked vegetables. Correctly bake a lamb leg at a temperature of 180 degrees. Time depends on its size. On average, it is 1.5-2 hours. If there is a grill in the oven, then shortly before the end of this time, turn it on and let the meat cover with a golden crust. After that, remove the leg and shurpa from the oven and serve.