Slow-roast leg of lamb with mulled wine onions
Prep time: 20 minsTotal time: 
Slow-roast leg of lamb with mulled wine onions
Cooked and served over sweet red onions in spiced red wine, this quick-to-prepare, all-in-one roast does the hard work in the oven, slowly transforming a leg of lamb into juicy, pull-apart meat
Prep time: 20 minsTotal time: 
Abigail Spooner
Abi is our Head of Food. She loves the precision and creativity of baking, turning fridge odds-and-ends into a weeknight pasta, and is always bookmarking new restaurants to try. She's happiest hosting friends around a table overflowing with food (and insisting everyone has seconds) or planning holidays around what to eat.
Abigail Spooner
Abi is our Head of Food. She loves the precision and creativity of baking, turning fridge odds-and-ends into a weeknight pasta, and is always bookmarking new restaurants to try. She's happiest hosting friends around a table overflowing with food (and insisting everyone has seconds) or planning holidays around what to eat.
Ingredients
- about 1.8-2kg leg of lamb, bone-in
- 5 medium-large red onions (about 800g), sliced
- 1 tbsp light brown soft sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 4 whole cloves
- 3 star anise
- 1 sprig rosemary
- pared strips of zest from ½ orange
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 x 75cl bottle medium-to-full-bodied red wine (eg rioja)
- 2 tbsp redcurrant jelly
Step by step
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Leave the lamb at room temperature for about 1 hour before roasting.
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Preheat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C, gas 3½. Put the sliced red onions in a large roasting tin (big enough to hold the lamb) and add the brown sugar, spices, rosemary and pared orange zest. Stir to combine. Pat the lamb dry with kitchen roll, then rub all over with the olive oil and season with salt and black pepper (including the underside). Sit the lamb on top of the red onions and pour the red wine around it. Cover the tin with foil, transfer to the oven and roast for 5 hours, by which point the meat should be pull-apart tender.
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Increase the oven temperature to 190°C, fan 170°C, gas 5. Remove the foil from the tin and cook for 20-30 minutes, until the lamb is browned and the liquid has reduced.
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Remove the tin from the oven. Lift the lamb onto a warmed serving dish and allow to rest, loosely covered with foil, for 10-15 minutes. Remove as many whole spices as you can find, then stir the redcurrant jelly through the contents of the roasting tin; keep warm. Shred the lamb with two forks and serve with the mulled wine onions.
Stir any leftover, shredded roast lamb into the mulled wine onions. Leave to cool, then cover and chill. Reheat in a large pan, with a splash of water, until piping hot.
