Roast lamb for idiots.

The weekend before Christmas I was invited to an early, not very festive lunch - which I cooked. I was supposed to only be doing a pudding (which I’m clearly an old hand at) but our elected chef cancelled a few days before. I stood up and decided to take the main-course bullet. “I’ll get the take-away menus out then” joked our host and oh! how we laughed. Until I threatened to lynch his pug. Which surprisingly wasn’t a euphemism.

I decided to cook slow roasted lamb, roast potatoes and veg with pigs in blankets. I know they’re supposed to go with chicken but they really are my favourite bit of Christmas. I spend weeks desperately waiting for December to start so I can start wrapping pigs in pigs. They just don’t taste as good at any other time of year.

I popped to the meat counter in Waitrose because I couldn’t make it to the butchers and got a shoulder of lamb as I really can’t stand fatty meat. My old flat mate used to love having a fry up with me as I’d spend five minutes carefully cutting all the fat off my bacon which I then dunked on his plate.

I’ll admit I bought ready-made pigs in blankets but they’re very easy to make. I think small, plain sausages are best, with smoked streaky bacon. If you wrap a sprig of rosemary with the sausage it gives them quite a nice flavour. The Waitrose website has quite a good recipe for a honey, Tabasco and bourbon glaze. You mix two tablespoons of bourbon, 10 drops of Tabasco and four tablespoons of clear honey together and you’re done. And a bit drunk.

Maris Piper potatoes are one of the best for roasting as they’re waxy. There’s a very good reason this is good but I can’t for the life of me remember it. Par boil the potatoes for ten minutes in slightly salty water (science bit: salt makes the cells break up quicker which helps the crunch factor). If you swish them around in a colander it roughens the surface giving you more crunchy bits. Some people dust potatoes in flour to help them stay crisp when they’re out of the oven. I’ve never bothered with anything like that as mine are usually in my tummy before they have a chance to soften.

While I pre-heated an oven at 150°c, though it might have been 180°c as all the numbers had worn off the dial, I used a knife to poke some holes through the lamb – while gleefully pretending to stab a tiny little person - which I then stuffed with quarter of a clove of garlic and a lot of rosemary. I did this after having a little cry about the blood that was in the packaging with the lamb. God, I really am suited to this cooking lark.

I then wrapped the lamb in some tin foil and stuck it in the oven for an hour. After a few very limey cosmos I unwrapped the meat and stuck the potatoes in for another hour and a half. If you turn them half way through this stops the bottom sticking to the baking tray and gives you more crispy bits.

Anyway in the words of someone doing a really rubbish Jamie Oliver impression: bish bash bosh, all done, pukka me old china. Laaaahvly!