Oscar winning recipe from Helen!
I love an excuse to buy a new piece of kitchen equipment and although I do already have a crock pot (slow cooker to us Brits) trying this recipe gave me an excuse to buy another. A big’un!
The lamb I cooked to Helen’s recipe was without a doubt the best lamb I have ever eaten. No kidding! Not just the best lamb I have ever cooked, but the best I have ever eaten, here, there or anywhere. I do have a reservation about the amount of veggies in Helen’s recipe though. Me and the Mister ate almost all of the potatoes and carrots between the two of us but the lamb itself would definitely serve 6 or more. It’s really hard to get pearl onions here so I used shallots.
I had to do some very amateurish butchery to chop a lump off the small end of the lamb so that I could fit it in my slow cooker, so do bear this in mind. If you are buying your lamb via a supermarket or delivery service then you’d better have a good bread knife(!).
The lamb was an amazing texture, Mr R said it was the easiest thing to carve he’d ever carved. The veggies were all lovely and lamb-y and we made gravy with all the wine-y gravy. Oh yummity. This really was a WINNER and is goes STRAIGHT INTO my top 100 movie star recipes.
We were planning to make a curry with the left over lamb, but honestly, it was so good that we had a re-run the next day with some of Mr R’s roast potatoes.
If I am ever allowed to have chums round to my place again, I am definitely going to serve this up with great relish. This is crowd pleasing comfort food for a future time when you can have 5 other people who don’t live with you around your table. When will that be? Who knows, but I will be READY.
I love the following anecdote Helen provided to food writer Johna Blinn when chatting about her lamb recipe. She told Johna that she began cooking chicken and lamb in a crock pot when Lilian Gish sent her one and suggested she try it. “I think she found my chicken too dry when she came out for a weekend and this was her dear way of telling me!”
My leg of lamb was about 5 pounds and it was HUGE! We had 4 portions and the rest (loads) went in the freezer. A pound of lamb per person is a LOT, so if you are making thi with a 6 pound leg of lamb, be prepared for lots of leftovers!
Thanks Helen, I love you in The Snoop Sisters and I absolutely love your lamb recipe.
This is great . Just sent it to my Mum. She was cooking ‘scrag end’ of lamb in her slow cooker yesterday !
Mark, this was sooooooooooo good! If your mum tries it, do let me know. Plus, remind me of this when we are allowed to have people around for dinner again. Would love to have you round for a big old lamb dinner!
I will so do that !! And If I can get down to Dorset for Xmas this year we are not going to bother with Turkey . I was planning to do Groucho’s Pot roast again, but think we’ll do this instead and Groucho on Boxing day !
Yipeeeee! I keep all my fingers and toes crossed that we can all travel at Xmas. You are gonna love this lamb, but bung in LOTS more veggies!