Leg of Lamb
Wash and remove all stringy substances from a leg of lamb; put butter in your roaster and place on top of range, sear the lamb on both sides; then place roaster in the oven with bottom barely covered with water, and roast slowly for about 3 hours, basting every 15 minutes. A few slices of onion over top gives good flavor.
A plain turn-of-the-century roast that assumes a heavy covered roasting pan and a coal or gas range with no thermostat. The method is sound; the timing belongs to an era that ate lamb fully cooked.
- The three hoursA 5-7 lb bone-in leg roasted three hours comes out grey-brown throughout. Modern practice takes it to an internal temperature of 130-135F for medium-rare or 140-145F for medium, read at the thickest part away from the bone, which is usually 15-20 minutes per pound at a moderate oven.
- "Roast slowly"The book gives no temperature, and there is no fixed figure behind the phrase; something in the region of 325F is a reasonable modern reading. If you want the browned crust the searing step is aiming at, start at 425F for 20 minutes and drop to 325F for the remainder.
- The roasterRoasters of this period were commonly deep oval pans with a domed lid, meant to be used covered, though this recipe does not say whether the lid goes on. If it is covered, water in the bottom means the meat steams as much as it roasts. Leave the lid off and use a rack if you want a roast rather than a braise.
- Water in the panThe thin film of water keeps drippings from scorching on an unreliable oven floor. It is still useful, but top it up as it evaporates, and do not let it rise high enough to touch the meat.
- Basting every 15 minutesFrequent basting drops the oven temperature every time the door opens and does little for a fatty cut like leg. Two or three bastings across the roast is enough; a rest of 15-20 minutes under foil before carving matters far more.
- "Stringy substances"This means the silverskin, the papery fell and any loose sinew at the shank. Leave a thin layer of fat cap on for flavor and score it in a diamond pattern.
- The onionSliced onion laid on top will scorch over three hours in an uncovered pan. Put the slices in the pan liquid instead, where they season the drippings and give you the base of a gravy.
- YieldA whole bone-in leg serves 6-8, with enough left for a cold plate the next day.
Leg of lamb is the kind of recipe that gets one short paragraph in a cookbook because everyone already knew it; what the book is really supplying is the sequence of steps for the particular equipment in the reader's kitchen. The stovetop sear followed by oven roasting reflects the arrival of the enclosed range with a usable oven. The long, slow, heavily basted cooking here is standard for the period: American and British cookery of the nineteenth century treated pink lamb as underdone, and the taste for rare leg of lamb is largely a twentieth-century development. The instruction to keep the pan bottom "barely covered with water" is a practical response to ovens whose floor heat could not be trusted, and the few slices of onion are the whole of the seasoning.