Easter Sunday Part One - Slow Roasted Lamb and Potatoes Dauphinoise

Well Easter Sunday has become something of a tradition in our house, for various reasons we are seldom able to get together over Christmas as a family, so over the last couple of years a big family dinner, an Easter egg hunt for the children and a pinata, form the annual ritual.

This year was a bit different as my sister--in-laws family weren't able to come, so momentarily our Easter egg hunt was childless before our camping companions were able to join us with my in-laws for the big day.

I decided to cook "slow cooked lamb" as the main joint for dinner, recipes for it are ten a penny on the Internet and in the array of cookery books I have at home, I did a lot of reading and came up with the following.

Slow Cooked Lamb

Preheat the oven to GM7/220C/425F.

Get an oven tin which has a rack. Remove the rack and in the base of the tin place - a quartered lemon, sprigs of thyme and rosemary, a whole head of garlic cut in half across the cloves, but put a few bits to one side.

Replace the rack and place the lamb (we had a large shoulder weighing 2.5kg) on top. Slash the fat with a sharp knife to make a criss-cross pattern. Season well with rock salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle over the remaining garlic, a little more fresh rosemary and thyme. Drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil and 1-2 glasses of red wine. This will help to steam the meat and will stop the herbs from burning.

Cover the lamb tightly with foil and place in the hot oven. Let it cook for 15 minutes and then turn the oven down to GM3/160C/325F and allow it to cook for about four and a half to five hours, the lamb is ready when the meat is falling off the bone and can be easily pulled apart by 2 forks, Rose Prince describes it as "shrugged off the bone" in her version.

Leave it to stand for at least 15-30 minutes before pulling off chunks with 2 forks an d serving.

I served ours with a roast chicken, roast potatoes, red cabbage, carrots, peas, courgettes stir fried with red onions, roast parsnips and Yorkshire puddings. For some reason I was concerned that there wouldn't be enough potatoes and decided to try something new (for me anyway!)

This recipe is straight from the Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall "Veg Everyday" book. It's not something you probably want to eat everyday, but once a year might be okay!


Potato Dauphinoise

Preheat the oven to GM3/160C/325F, same as the lamb so your can cook it at the same time.

Generously butter an ovenproof dish (mine was 18x23x4cm).

Finely slice 1kg of floury potatoes and add them to a bowl with 400ml double cream, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, salt and pepper and about quarter of a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg. Mix it together with your hands until the potatoes are well coated.

Layer the potatoes in the dish, spreading them as flat and even as you can. Pour over any remaining cream.

Bake for one and a quarter to one and a half hours, pressing down with a spatula every so often to ensure the potatoes don't dry out. The dish is ready when the potatoes are golden and bubbling, you will need to increase the temperature of the oven to GM5/190C/375F for the last 5 minutes.

Allow to stand for 5 minutes before serving.

The dinner was delicious, it's not often I can enjoy the dinner fully after all the cooking, but the lamb just melted in the mouth and because it was shoulder it was so flavoursome. I don't think I've ever had potatoes dauphinoise before, I thought they would be too rich and was surprised how much I enjoyed them, soft and creamy with a crunchy top. We did a serve yourself affair and it was so relaxed everyone tucking in and passing bowls of steaming food, a really lovely dinner with great company.

The Easter egg hunt was a great success, 3 children and lots of chocolate - what could go wrong?!

And finally, the pinata got a good bashing but has survived to face another year.

Lauren reaping the rewards

whilst letting the boys do all the work!