Stuffed lamb loin
Originally uploaded by Manne.
In my not so very expert opinion, lamb must be ideal for roasting. Lots of fat packed with flavour, and ideally served slightly pink, it is difficult to get it wrong. If I can get it right, anyone can.
What mainly attracted me to this recipe (from The Cook's Book) was the stuffing. Spinach, loads of garlic, double cream, chopped kidneys... Lovely. Rolled in a lamb loin it would probably be enough as a whole meal for any paleo or low carber. We decided to roast a few parsnips and carrots though, to make it a more complete meal (and get some nice leftovers for bubble and squeak breakfast).
Went to the butchers yesterday to have the loin prepared and got a fantastic demonstration of where the kidneys sit in the lamb. Since the recipe confused me a bit, saying that the stuffing required the "kidneys of the saddle of lamb" I wasn't sure if the actual kidneys were what they meant, or if it perhaps was some special cut of meat.
So when I asked, the butcher simple showed me a whole lamb where the kidneys sat snugly nested in a casing of suet right at the top of the lamb saddle.
Behold the very kidneys that went in my spinach and garlic stuffing
Originally uploaded by Manne.
As the entire saddle is quite big, and probably could feed 20 people, I settled for just buying the loin.
Snip, snip, cut, cut, ten minutes later I had a perfect loin in my bag, with the kidneys for the stuffing resting on top. If you live in the Peckham area, I can't recommend the butchers on Peckham Park Road enough. Friendly, helpful and able to provide most anything.
Lessons learned from cooking this:
- Stuffing volume is more than is supposed to fit in the lamb roll. With that knowledge before I started stuffing, I wouldn't have had to scrape so much of it off the bench...
- Tying string around a lamb loin is tricky on your own. For next time I need to grow an extra hand, or have a kitchen assistant.
- Putting a roasting tray on top of the gas cooker is dangerous. It heats up extremely fast, burns the fat, and skews the pan. Fry in a frying pan first and then transfer to the roasting tray.
If you have five hours to spare, I filmed the whole thing using the live broadcasting service Bambuser. Tune in next Sunday for another live edition of Slow Cooking Sundays straight from my London kitchen.
(Now, why you would want to do that is beyond me, but considering I had 43 people watching the feed this evening... Ask me questions, and I will answer. ;)
Ingredients
Spinach & Garlic Stuffing
20 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tbsp butter
splash of olive oil
100 ml double cream
800 gram spinach
kidneys from the lamb, diced small
2 egg yolks
Ingredients for stuffed lamb loin
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Roast Lamb Loin, Stuffed
1 lamb loin, boned, stuffed with spinach & garlic
rosemary, loads
1 bulb of garlic, halved crossways
olive oil for frying
Method
Spinach & Garlic Stuffing
Set your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Peel and blanch the garlic cloves for a minute. Drain and put in a foil package along with the butter and olive oil. Roast the garlic in oven for half an hour, then crush the garlic in a large bowl. Reserve the infused oil for frying off the lamb loin later.
Reduce cream in a sauce pan to half its volume.
Blanch the spinach (I did this by adding spinach leaves and boiling water from my kettle in batches to a large stock pot, as 800 grams of spinach is a lot of volume when raw...). Drain and leave in cool water for a few minutes to refresh.
Squeeze the spinach dry and chop roughly, add to the large bowl with the garlic.
Toss the chopped kidneys in a hot pan for half a minute or so, then mix them with the spinach and garlic along with the cream and egg yolks. Season with salt and pepper.
Roast Stuffed Lamb Loin
Stuff the loin with the spinach and garlic mix. You really don't need to use more than half, save the rest of the stuffing for warming in a pan later and serving as a side.
Add the stuffing in layers, so you put some stuffing along where the spine sat, then fold the fillets over, add some more stuffing, then finally roll it all up folding the skin flaps across eachother.
Tie it up to a roll. Do yourself a favour and have someone else present to help you with this. That third hand to have a finger to press on the knots is important...
Start tying each end, and then one or two loops around the middle. Tie it tight, but not too hard. If you do, the stuffing will push out through the ends while roasting.
Heat some olive oil (I reused the oil that I roasted the garlic for the stuffing in) and sear the roll all around in a frying pan until golden. Transfer to a roasting tray, along with the oil and juices from the pan, and surround the roll with rosemary and the halved garlic cloves.
Roast in oven until done. Which in my case was determined using a meat thermometer. As it reached 56 degrees Celsius in the center, I took the roll out to rest. It took about 120 minutes or so for my 2 kilo loin.
Put the roll on a rack and leave it for another half hour or so to rest. The cooking continues, so this is important. It also makes it easier to deal with when slicing it up later.
While the roast is resting, make a nice gravy. You'll find lots of recipes for nice gravies (is that really the plural?) online. When there is five minutes or so left of the resting time, heat through the remaining stuffing in a frying pan.
Ingredients for stuffed lamb loin
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Carve thin slices from the end of the loin roll. If you got the roasting right, it should be slightly pink in the middle, and oozing meat juices.
Serve with the gravy, a quenelle of the warm stuffing, and perhaps some tomatoes or sliced romano pepper for added crunch and freshness. Delish.
