Roasted Leg of Lamb with Fig-Port Wine Sauce

My family loves lamb! I won’t lie there are a lot of steps to this recipe but the end result is worth it! Have you ever had lamb that was on the “gamey” side? The trick is to remove the silvery connective tissue on a leg of lamb, trimming off some fat as well. Then brining the lamb in salt/sugar/garlic solution for a few hours. I then rub a herb paste over the roast and let marinade for a few more hours. To make sure the roast cooks evenly I wrap tightly with twine. I threw this on the traegar med- high heat for 40 min or so till medium rare.

First off:

Trim the roasts fat and silvery connective tissue off of the roast.

The Brine:

Take a large container and add 2 quarts of water, 1/4 cup salt, 8 mashed garlic cloves, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp of peppercorns.

CHECK this shot out. Doesn’t it look like some nasty weird Mad Scientists brew 😉

Igor’s Secret Kitchen Brew! lol 🙂

Put this in the fridge for at least a few hours.

The herb Paste:

Ok so basically this is similar to a pesto minus the nuts.

I had about 1 tbsp of rosemary, 2 tsp of thyme, 1/2 cup of parsley, 2 garlic cloves and EVOO

I mixed everything in the food processor and drizzled in my olive oil aprox 1/4 cup

This gets smeared all over the meat and chilled for a few more hours to marinade. I use kitchen twine to get it back into a roast form then I grilled this on my traegar for about 40 minutes till medium rare. If you are wanting to use a regular barbecue please cook this with indirect heat. A traegar grill is a wood pellet grill that works the same as a normal convection oven with the smokey benefits of a wood fire stove.

Serve with Fig-Port sauce

 

Fig-Port Wine Sauce

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 30min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

The Fig-Port wine Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 8 mission dried figs
• 2 cup of port
• 1  cup of chicken stock
• 1 cinnamon stick
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp of fresh thyme
• 2 tsp of fresh rosemary
• 2 tbsp of butter

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and reduce liquids by half. Discard the cinnamon stick and place the sauce in a food processor. Puree the sauce till smooth then blend in the butter and serve with the lamb 🙂

Not Living Up to My Reputation

Today’s Zero to Hero Challenge was discussing daily prompts. These are useful when you have writer’s block. Today’s question is….do you have a reputation? Every one has a reputation for something. BUT to pick just one thing and describe someone using one certain character….well that is hard to do.

Most of my friends and family have seen my crafty and culinary obsessions bloom and remain a big part of who I am so I have been called  Martha Stewart, time and time again. I have a funny story to share with you …and trust me I don’t live up to the Martha Stewart  standard.

This is a snippet from an email I sent to Jen my best friend and blog partner in crime:

Ok I will try to get out the door around 530 but if I don’t make it I will have to just chug something out by myself later.

I told Peter how weird it was working out with you and you taking the bull by its horns and spewing out all this fitness jargon that I have no clue about (and I’m suppose to be a nurse ….what the heck muscle is that and what the Harry does aerobic vs anaerobic mean again).

No worries boss I’ll set my alarm and sorry to vent all my crabby-ness on you it’s almost 7 and kids are still at my house!!  I’m having another salty pear!!

Oh ya I should win the Darwin of the year award! I was almost in tears 20 min ago because I went outside to retrieve succulent chicken and instead I opened the lid to a dead fire and half cooked poultry MF’er so I had a bit of a melt down and asked my other boss to fix the fuc’n thing! Turns out a wood fire needs wood or no bueno!! I ran out of the wood pellets and that’s why it wasn’t hot!!

Long story short I had to finish it off quickly or not so quickly in the oven and it produced major smoke in the house. I  had to open up all the windows and doors, while tears were rolling down my eyes from the stinging fumes!!! Wow what a culinary adventure! Not going on the blog!! Amateurs-Ville is me!

3 hour chicken=smokey rooms “r” us

Xoxo Nicole

See ya at the crack of dawn beautiful