Just love this recipe – Roast shoulder of lamb with Boulangère potatoes recipe
One of the things I love about food is its ability to change moods, somehow the magic of something tasty and filling can turn even the most stubborn of melancholy induced frowns upside down, which can only be a good thing right? People have sometimes said that I get far too excited about food and I rarely think about anything else, and they’d be right, Food is my mistress. Thankfully my lady is more than accepting of my love affair.
When I was a boy I used to look forward to Sunday dinners, it was the one day in the week that I had some resemblance of normal family life. A hearty Sunday meal followed by boring Sunday television like soldier and heartbeat, ‘Sit and watch it…it’s culture’ was always uttered in my direction whenever I whined about my mothers choice of TV. I always saw Sunday’s as a sort of ‘mini Christmas day’, the relaxing feeling of not doing very much, having a full belly and stretching out on the sofa whilst watching ‘cultural’ TV, and thinking about the soft moist pull apart lamb that I had just blasted down my neck. For all her faults – as I have mentioned many times on here – my mother was a very good cook and she was exceptional at cooking a good Sunday lunch.
This recipe makes a change from the traditional Sunday lunch, it’s the sort of dish you can leave alone to get on with itself while you get on with not doing very much. You have the potatoes and meat all in one pan so all you need to prepare is your veg. You don’t even need gravy as the lamb is moist and the potatoes give up a thick, sticky unctuous sauce that has all the flavors of the lamb. I have had Boulangère potatoes many times before, but putting them below a roasting haunch of good meat is even better, you can do it with any slow roasting joint; a piece of brisket would be deliciously done this way. The point of this dish is the meat releases it’s fat and juices which get soaked up by the spuds, creating soft fudgey potatoes with a crisp top. Boulangère potatoes translate as ‘bakers potatoes’, in France the local women would take the dish of thinly sliced potatoes, onions, and stock down to the local bakery. As people didn’t have ovens of their own the bakery would turn off the ovens at the end of the working day and allow locals to cook their food in the residual heat.
This is slow food, and I mean slow. You want to cook this dish for about 4 or 5 hours on a really low heat, so unless you have a lot of spare time in the week, this dish is ideal for long slow, lay about lazy days.
If you make my Roast shoulder of lamb with Boulangère potatoes Recipe, be sure to take a photo and tag me @onlinefoodblog on Instagram or Twitter. I would love nothing more than to see your creations!
2kg lamb shoulder joint Try out our Roast shoulder of lamb with Boulangère potatoes recipe and post your results below in the comments… How do you make Roast shoulder of lamb with Boulangère potatoes
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Ingredients
3 medium-sized onions finely sliced
5-7 Large Desiree potatoes, peeled.
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
Around 4-6 fresh garlic cloves, peeled
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Olive oil
650ml Good chicken stock, make your own or buy the best you can (Knorr jelly stock is good)Instructions
Notes