On the heat. Mild

Ingredients

• 1 half leg of lamb, rump end
• 1.5 kg waxy potatoes, sliced 3 mm
• 3 onions, sliced very thin
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• 80 g butter
• 600 ml hot lamb or chicken stock
• Thyme · 2 bay leaves
• Salt, black pepper
• Anchovy fillets (optional, traditional in the south)

Method

1. Butter a deep dish. Layer potatoes, onion, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper, dotting butter as you go. Press it down firmly and pour the hot stock over to just below the top layer.
2. Stab the lamb and insert garlic slivers, and anchovy if using. Salt heavily.
3. Bake the potatoes alone at 190 °C for 30 minutes first — they need the head start.
4. Sit the lamb on top of the potatoes and return. 180 °C for 55 minutes for pink, 70 for well done.
5. Lift the lamb onto a board and rest it 25 minutes. Put the potatoes back at 220 °C to brown the top while it rests.
6. Carve at the table with the dish alongside. There is no gravy and there should not be — everything ran into the potatoes.

Cook's note. Boulangère, not dauphinoise. Stock, not cream. The whole idea is a dish taken to the village baker's cooling oven, and cream would have split in it.

← Back to The Lamb Book