Dinner: Leg of Lamb w/ Root Vegetable, Coconut Corn Soup, Sauerkraut and Raw Milk

Coconut Oil: 2 tablespoons taken in tangerine ginger tea
Dinner: 

• Leg of Lamb with Root Vegetables: carrots, turnips, new potatoes
• Leftover Coconut Corn Soup
• Sauerkraut (mine isn't ready because it's still fermenting, so I am subbing lacto-fermented pickles)
• Raw Milk or Coconut Milk Tonic (I am having raw milk)

I just put my leg of lamb into a broth of white wine and water herbed with several teaspoons of dried thyme and dried rosemary, several cloves of unpeeled garlic, and several bay leaves.  It is going to braise for 3 hours and then I will add my root vegetables for another hour.  Therefore: 4 hour leg of lamb.  

I looked at the recipe in Eat Fat, Lose Fat and sort of combined it with this recipe for 4-Hour Lamb I saw from Ina Garten when I was watching Barefoot Contessa a few weeks ago.  I did that because Ina's recipe uses a Dutch oven to braise the meat over a long period of time, and that sounds delicious.   She also browns it first before putting it in the oven.  I will post the hybrid recipe I used.  Someday I will try the book version, it sounds good too.

A note about ingredients: I found the best price for lamb at Whole Foods, where a leg of lamb was on sale for $4.99/lb.  I always buy Kerrygold butter from Trader Joe's, because they have the best price.  Kerrygold is the cheapest grass-fed butter I can find around here.  Sea salt is much better for you than iodized salt which has additives.  Most of my root vegetables are organic, which I buy in bulk on Azure Standard.  You can do your own searching in your area, but make sure you know where your food comes from.

4-Hour Leg of Lamb

by K

1 small leg of lamb
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter
sea salt and pepper to taste

1 bottle (750 mL) dry white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)

2 cups water

15 sprigs fresh thyme, or a palmful of dried thyme

15 sprigs fresh rosemary, or a palmful of dried rosemary

6 bay leaves

2 heads of garlic, broken up into cloves, unpeeled

4-6 carrots, peeled, cut into large sticks

2-3 turnips, quartered

6 new potatoes, cut in half or quartered

1 onion, sliced

3-4 cups beef stock

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Place Dutch oven over medium heat until hot.  Meanwhile, rub leg of lamb with 1/4 cup melted butter (reserve other 1/2 cup) and season generously with salt and pepper.  Sear in hot Dutch oven on all sides until browned all over.  Remove leg of lamb and set on a plate.  

2.  Add entire bottle of wine and water to the Dutch oven, scraping all the browned bits up with a wooden spoon or spatula.  Add thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, and garlic to the liquid.  Place leg of lamb back into the Dutch oven, cover with a lid and place in the oven.

3.  Cook, covered, for four hours.

4.  Meanwhile, peel and chop vegetables.  Put onto a roasting pan or jelly roll pan lined with parchment. Brush or drizzle with remaining 1/2 cup melted butter, season with salt and pepper, and put in the oven on a rack underneath the Dutch oven during the final hour of the four hours of cooking.

5.  In a saucepan, reduce 4 cups of beef stock down to 1 or 2 cups of stock.  This way it will be concentrated down to add later to the sauce.

6.  Remove Dutch oven from oven and remove lid.  Remove leg of lamb from the Dutch oven, set on a plate, and cover with foil.  Check vegetables to see if they are tender.  If they are, remove them from the oven and cover with foil as well.  If not, let them roast a little longer while you make the sauce.

7. Add reduced beef stock to the Dutch oven, over medium high heat on the stove.  Bring liquid in the Dutch oven to a rapid boil, reducing down to one cup or so.  Season with salt to taste.  Serve over lamb and vegetables.

(Cross-posted.)