This slow cooked lamb dish is a staple in our home! Its smell and flavour are pure comfort, like a warm hug.
Cooking it in a Dutch oven sealed with 'dead dough' allows it to build pressure, raising the boiling point to 120 C instead of the usual 100 C. The result? incredibly tender meat with concentrated flavour. Cracking open the dough at the table feels theatrical and mysterious: a discovery for everyone, I promise you, it's worth it!
A Christmassy recipe featured in the Cambridge independent Magazine.

SERVES: EIGHT
Ingredients:
1.4–1.6kg leg of lamb on the bone, all visible fat removed
100ml olive oil
1 whole garlic bulb, sliced in half with skin left on
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
3 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 thin bacon rashers, chopped
100ml dry white wine, preferably Burgundy
250ml veal stock (or chicken or vegetable stock)
1 sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
‘Dead dough’
300g plain flour
1 egg
Pinch of salt
150ml water
Method:
Make the ‘dead dough’: mix the flour with the egg and salt and gradually add the water until you obtain an elastic paste. Using some cling film, roll it up into a thick sausage and leave to rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
Place the lamb in a deep-sided flameproof casserole with some of the olive oil and sear it quickly on all sides, over a high heat, until browned. Remove the lamb from the casserole dish and set aside while you cook the vegetables.
Add the garlic, onion, carrots, and potatoes to the casserole and cook them very gently over a low heat in the remaining olive oil. Add the bacon, then pour in the white wine and turn up the heat. Reduce until the liquid has totally evaporated. Return the lamb, rounded-side down, to the casserole and pour the veal stock around it. Add the sprig of thyme and bay leaf and then bring to the boil and boil hard for 30 seconds.
Dampen a pastry brush with some water and brush around the rim of the casserole dish. Carefully place the length of dough around the top of the rim, pressing it down well, and then cover with the casserole lid to seal it.
Cook very slowly in a preheated oven at 120°C, gas mark ½ for 7 hours. The cooked lamb will be so tender that it will fall off the bone and should be served ‘peasant style’ from the casserole dish with all the vegetables and juices.

Try our other recipes on https://www.amelierestaurants.co.uk/blog