Lamb - the dish is not so exotic and pretentious as it seems to the average housewife from Nizhnevartovsk.

Too much European has become in our women, especially in recent years.

It is time to remember about the eastern roots.

In the Caucasus, such a treasure as a whole lamb leg, the bearer of skirts would never have been allowed.

A Russian housewife with lamb meat can easily “make friends” if she knows some rules.

Choosing the right leg of lamb

Buying a fresh and high-quality part of a ram for the upcoming dinner is the first, but far from the easiest step. Especially for a woman, and especially for a Russian.

Many housewives do not even realize that in a recipe read from the Internet, a lamb leg baked in a sleeve is not about a ram, an adult well-fed animal, but about a miniature delicious lamb.

In our market, an inexperienced customer can slip everything, even a part of a mother, with cattle overgrown with fat, with a specific aroma.

Therefore, you should first decide which leg you want to buy: a one-year-old lamb or a tender two-month-old lamb?

The youth of the meat is as important as its freshness.

You can distinguish a young lamb from an old one by the weight of its legs. Milk lamb weighs about 2 kilos, and a leg of an older carcass leg - up to 5 kilos.

Pay attention to the color of the purchased piece. The meat should not be dark or gray, and give the fat yellowness. A moderate amount of pink lamb with white fat is what you need.

By the way, it is very important not to get confused in the terminology, and not to buy a piece of an older ram because of the reluctance to cook from a milk sheep. Believe me, the sex of the animal does not affect the taste.

It is better to buy lamb in a specialized department of the store, and not in the market. And even more so not on the spontaneous!

Cooking a lamb leg, like any other meat, is not a lottery, so you should not shrug off quality guarantees. The best option is a chilled piece of carcass, preserving all the juiciness and nutritional values, in contrast to the meat "ice cream".

Learning to process lamb meat

Cooking lamb leg begins with the preparation of meat - inspection and processing of the legs.

Lamb is not a chicken, it can’t just be washed before baking. Fat and layers must be removed immediately. Thoroughly cleansing a piece of everything unnecessary is not a whim of cooks, but an important condition for eliminating a ducky of meat.

For this procedure, you need to prepare a sharpened cutting knife.

Taking the leg by its thin end, you need to stick the knife between the meat and fat and gently turn the blade from side to side, exfoliating the fat from the lamb and gently spreading the fatty films.

After this, the fatty membrane can be easily torn off the ram’s leg with one strong jerk.

If the recipe for making a lamb leg does not provide for dividing the leg into pieces, you must be very careful not to damage the integrity of the piece when removing the toe from it.

The remaining fat layer is easily cut with a knife, after which the piece is washed and dried for a while.

Marinate, grate, or sheat the lamb leg

Juicy lamb can be pickled, rubbed with spice, herbs or stuffed with various spices, vegetables, etc. It all depends on your tastes and instructions for the selected recipe.

Lamb meat accepts classic vinegar marinade (water, vinegar, spices), as well as many exotic options with honey, mustard, olive oil, wine.

A lamb leg in a sleeve, as a rule, always requires a marinade. If you want to fry and bake meat, then you can limit yourself to rubbing it with various spices.

You can not be shy in the gastronomic delights, experimenting with fragrant herbs, spicy seasonings, sweet dried fruits.

Among the most traditional seasonings suitable for mutton, there are rosemary, basil, black and red pepper, as well as chili and paprika, bay leaf, ginger, cilantro, garlic and many others.

As a lamb leg filling, you can take apples that are classic for meat, prunes, hot or sweet peppers, carrots, garlic, and non-standard products: lard, berries and even anchovies.

How to cook a lamb leg in the oven

Before baking, a piece of lamb carcass is either fried in a pan or greased generously with sunflower oil. These manipulations are necessary to obtain a delicious “tan” of meat.

The lamb leg is baked to an average degree of roasting: the meat should be slightly pink inside. , cooked in this way, very juicy, ruddy, with a golden crust and tender inside. To get this result, bake the leg for 1 hour 10 minutes. If you want how to roast meat and get stewed lamb, which is also unusually tasty and more acceptable on a Russian table, I advise you to bake 2 hours 10 minutes, or even all 2.5 hours.

The lamb must be young and lean. Then the meat will remain juicy, with a wonderful aroma.

We carefully clean the lamb leg weighing about 2.5 kg from the films. Peel 10-12 large cloves of garlic and cut each in half. Wash, dry and chop 1 medium bunch of cilantro. We measure 1 tbsp. l salt, 2 tsp freshly ground pepper ( black, pink, white) and 4-5 Art. l olive oil.

With a knife we \u200b\u200bmake small vertical cuts in the leg ( 2-3 cm deep), put half of the garlic in each, add a little salt with pepper and cilantro. Lubricate the lamb leg with oil, rub with the remaining salt, pepper and leave for 20-30 minutes, so that the meat is saturated with the aroma of spices and spices.

We cover the large baking sheet with two sheets of foil so that the whole leg can be wrapped. We lay the lamb leg in the middle of the baking sheet, wrap it in foil from all sides: the juice that appears during baking should not leak out. We put in the oven, heated to 180 ° C, for 1 hour 10 minutes.

While baking, we take 1.5 kg of small or medium potatoes, peel and boil until half ready in salted water with 1-2 bay leaves and 2 peeled garlic cloves. Potatoes should not be boiled.

In a pan, heat 5 tbsp. l vegetable and 50-70 g of butter. Fry the potatoes until they are rosy, then salt and pepper. Salt should be literally a pinch, and pepper on the tip of a teaspoon.

10-12 pieces of cherry tomatoes with my stalk and drain, they will be needed for decoration. We take 10-12 toothpicks or skewers from bamboo.

We take out the meat from the oven, carefully open the foil, diligently pour the meat with the juice formed during baking. We stick toothpicks in the leg, we plant cherry on each. Without covering the meat with foil, put it back in the oven to brown the surface. This will take 10-12 minutes. No more, otherwise it will dry out!

For serving, prepare a large dish. We cut out the decoration from white paper to wrap a bare bone. We take out the baked leg from the oven, transfer to a dish, close the bone with paper. Pour the fried potatoes with lamb juice, tomatoes and all this seductively luxury stack, decorate and immediately serve.

After living in France for 10 years, I learned to understand the taste of lamb and began to understand meat. The French eat lamb hot and drink it with dry red wine. If you have not eaten the whole leg at once, it can be served the next day in the form of cold slices with mustard or any other sauce.

Elena Magnenan:
  “Mom’s mother, my grandmother, a Cossack, Olga Vladimirovna, didn’t even possess a letter, but she was the hostess - hoo-hoo! And the first lessons of life I received from her. And my Moscow grandmother, Klavdia Vladimirovna, is a theater, museums, the first etiquette skills. Most of our lives we lived in Zamoskvorechye, on Sliver. Aunt, uncle, father, me - we all finished 627 school. They gave me everything they could: the Loktevsky choir, the Bolshoi Theater, the Hall of Columns, music, painting, songs with a guitar, a cottage in Zagorsk, playing lotto until the morning with a samovar ... Dad cooked well, and I learned a lot from him.

I lived for ten years in France, first in Paris, then in Burgundy. But she returned to Russia. I have on the Volga, in Ples there is a small, chamber hotel with a wonderful restaurant "Private Visit". "I am happy to delight my family, my children, guests and travelers who have accidentally stopped by - homemade dishes, aromas, incredible abundance."

Helena Magnenan Recipes:

Baked lamb leg is a dish for all occasions. Due to its size, using such a dish you will be able to feed the crowd of guests or forget about cooking for the whole family for about 4 days. The beauty of roasting ham is the simplicity of the process, and the result will live up to all expectations! It will be not only tasty, but also healthy.

How to cook a lamb leg in the oven

The meaty ham can be supplemented with vegetables, seasonings and various greens. In any case, the meat is juicy and delicate in taste. Before baking a lamb leg in the oven, you need to figure out a choice. Better buy the back of the lamb. Such a carcass has no unpleasant odor and is not very oily. If you notice yellow fat on a mutton leg, then it is better to refuse this piece: if you don’t marinate, it will have a specific aroma.

How much to bake

Such a baked leg, in comparison with plain pork, should take longer to cook. A large role is played by the size of the legs. Time must be calculated according to this principle: for every kilogram of weight per hour. In order not to suffer with how much lamb is cooked in the oven, it is worth buying a culinary thermometer. Having set it in the widest place of the carcass, the hostess should see 65 C of internal temperature. This indicates the readiness of the shank. After turning off the oven, the lamb leg should still be infused for 20 minutes.

How to pickle

The method of pickling depends on the quality of the mutton ham. If good meat was bought, then it is enough to salt, pepper and add aromatic spices with olive oil. For baking, it is better to choose a portion of the young lamb. If the animal is under 18 months old, then the fibers retain a large amount of nucleic acid, there is no characteristic specific smell.

Garlic, onions, red peppers and tomatoes are also great for marinating. Such Caucasian spices as hops-suneli, cilantro, caraway seeds will saturate the drumstick with a special aroma. Many people have difficulty how to marinate a lamb leg for baking, if the meat is tough. Professionals recommend using kiwi for this occasion. The leg is rubbed with fruit puree and pickled for an hour or two. All rigidity will go away. In addition, you can boil the shank, and then start the main cooking using the oven.

Oven leg recipe in the oven

There are many options for cooking shanks using the oven. Such a dish looks very beautiful and festive, as in the photo. Baked shank can go both immediately with a side dish, and without it. For this, potatoes or grains, beans are suitable. Many people prefer to cook with their sleeves, which makes the lamb recipe in the oven even easier to follow. In this case, the dish will never burn, retain its flavor, juice and juiciness.

In foil

The recipe presented is often used for a special occasion. The dish is not a traditional food of our region, therefore it is joyfully prepared for the holidays. Baking the lamb leg in the oven in the foil is very simple if you have a good meat back and spices at home. Thanks to a thin metal wrapper, aromas and juiciness do not evaporate outward. In addition, the view of such a dish is amazing!

Ingredients:

• lamb leg - 2.5 kg;
• prunes - 200 g;
• carrot - 1 pc.;
• white onion - 2 pcs.;
• parsley - 1 bunch;
• garlic - 6 cloves;
• mustard - 2 tbsp. l .;
• lemon - 1 pc.;
• olive oil - 4 tbsp. l .;
• spice.

Cooking method

1. Wash the ham, free from excess fat.
2. For the marinade, use various seasonings: peas, lavrushka, Provence herbs and basil. To dry mixes add parsley, chopped garlic. Pour the resulting mass with olive oil, juice of fresh lemon, mix well.
3. Rub leg thoroughly with marinade. Wrap in foil for 12 hours.
4. Before baking, make deep cuts in the leg, lay them with prunes, herbs.
5. Thoroughly rub leg with mustard and salt, lay pieces of carrot and onion around.
6. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and send the leg wrapped in foil inside.
7. After an hour, reduce the temperature to 180 C, open the foil.
8. Cook another 60 minutes, periodically pouring the lamb with its own juice.
9. After 2 hours, let the baked dish brew, wrapped in foil, for another 20 minutes.

With potato

Baked lamb shoulder is delicious and nutritious. Lamb meat contains a large amount of protein, with regard to cholesterol, then its minimum. In combination with potatoes, it comes out very satisfying. Mistresses will appreciate the simplicity and ease of the cooking process. This option will not take much time, and due to the fact that lamb with potatoes in the oven in the sleeve is obtained impressive volumes, you can eat a baked dish for several days.

Ingredients:

• lamb leg - 1 kg .;
• potatoes - 2 kg;
• lavrushka - 2 leaves;
• white onion - 2 heads;
• oregano - 2 pinches;
• sunflower oil - 3 tbsp. l .;
• spice mix.

Cooking method

1. Wash the lamb leg, dry with a paper towel. If desired, you can grind to get a full roast, or leave whole.
2. Add salt to the ham, add spices. Leave to marinate for 40 minutes
3. Peel the onion, cut into large pieces.
4. Wash the potatoes, chop the bars no thinner than 1 cm.
5. Mix vegetables with each other, add salt and pepper.
6. Smear a baking sheet with butter, put potatoes and onions on top of it, ham on top. Sprinkle all oregano and other spices.
7. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees, set the dish for 45 minutes.
8. Periodically pour the baked ham into the bouillon, which is collected in a baking sheet. If not enough, add half a glass of dry wine.
9. After the required time has elapsed, allow the dish to cool for 5 minutes, then serve.

In beer

A plastic sleeve - a universal invention, comes to the aid of a housewife in any situation, even if she does not know how to bake a lamb leg in the oven. This cooking technique requires minimal effort. Everything that would not fill the carcass will convey its aroma. Lamb baked with a sleeve does not require time consuming. Just set the desired temperature and forget about the dish. After 3 hours, you will get a juicy and festive meal. A lamb leg baked in beer according to such a recipe will come out amazing. If there is no whole piece, you can make a knuckle by this principle.

Ingredients:

• mutton ham - 1.5 kg;
• white onion - 2 pcs.;
• garlic - 4 cloves;
• basil - a small bunch;
• lavrushka - 2 leaves;
• black pepper - 1 tsp;
• olive oil - 3 tbsp. l .;
• wine vinegar - 1 tsp;
• bitter pepper - 1 pc.;
• beer - 1 glass.
• salt as needed.

Cooking method

1. Wash and dry the ham with a paper towel.
2. Make shallow cuts in the shank, stuff with garlic and laurel leaves, sprinkle abundantly with salt and pepper.
3. Add half a glass of beer, herbs, vinegar, hot pepper and grate a foot to olive oil. Leave for 2 hours.
4. Cut the onion into rings, put the sleeve on it.
5. A leg is laid out on the onion pillow, poured with beer.
6. In the oven preheated to 200 ° C, send ham for 3 hours.
7. 30 minutes before the readiness to open the sleeve and reduce the fire to 180 C. Periodically pour the shank with a beer yushka.

With vegetables

Lamb leg goes well with a side dish of vegetables. Potatoes, tomatoes and carrots will not only help to better reveal the taste of meat carcasses, and add aroma, make the baked dish even more appetizing. If you like lamb leg with vegetables in the oven, but do not know how to cook the dish yourself, follow the recipe. For this option, both the whole part and the pieces are suitable.

Ingredients:

• lamb ham - 500 g;
• potatoes - 200 g;
• carrot - 1 pc.;
• onion - 1 pc.;
• tomatoes - 3 pcs.;
• sunflower oil - 3 tablespoons;
• spices, salt to taste.

Cooking method

1. Wash the lamb, remove excess fat. For marinade use spices, salt and sunflower oil. Rub them abundantly with a piece of meat. Leave to marinate for an hour.
2. Cut vegetables into large pieces, put on the bottom of a deep baking bowl.
3. A ham is laid out on the vegetables, half a glass of water is added.
4. Preheat the oven to 200 ° C, place a bowl. Cook for 1.5 hours with the lid closed.
5. After the set time has passed, remove the lid and leave the food in the oven to form a golden crust.

With quince

If you like unusual culinary improvisations, try combining sweet and sour quince with rich aromatic meat. With such a baked dish it is easy to surprise guests with its gastronomic talents. The unusual fruit, although it has its sweetness, does not kill the wonderful taste of meat, but emphasizes it. The fruit contains a large amount of vitamins and minerals. Only 2 hours of time, and a juicy lamb leg baked with quince will appear on the table.

Ingredients:

• lamb leg - 1.5 kg;
• quince - 0.3 kg;
• carrots - 2 pcs.;
• white onion - 2 pcs.;
• lavrushka - 2 pcs.;
• garlic - 1 head;
• cardamom - 6 pcs.;
• a mixture of peppers;
• salt.

Cooking method

1. Peel the onion, cut into large pieces.
2. Wash carrots, chop into large squares.
3. Quince should choose a ripe, with a clean and smooth yellow peel. Wash fruit, cut into slices. Do not remove the peel, otherwise the quince will become porridge during cooking.
4. The glass baking dish must be covered with foil.
5. Put onion, carrot, bay leaf, add spices. If you want the meat to be more flavorful, then cardamom is better to peel. Place the ham on a vegetable pillow.
6. Top lamb generously fill with quince, add 2 cups of water to the total mass.
7. Cook with a closed lid for 2 hours at a temperature of 180 C.

In mustard

A simple recipe will appeal to both experienced and novice cooks. Fragrant mustard will allow lamb to better open its potential, satisfy even the most demanding gourmet. If you don’t know how to cook the back, remember this recipe. Baked lamb leg in mustard is a festive dish that can be easily prepared every day.

Ingredients:

• lamb leg - 1.5 kg;
• dijon mustard - 2 tbsp. l .;
• vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. l .;
• mixtures of peppers, salt.

Cooking method

1. Wash the leg, cut off the remaining fat and veins. Generously grate with pepper and salt.
2. To pickle meat, you must mix mustard and oil. Carefully coat the ham with the resulting mass, leave for an hour or two.
3. They put a foot in the sleeve into the oven preheated to 200 ° C. For 1.5, 2.5 hours is enough, but if the mass of the drumstick is more, the time needs to be increased.
4. After the right time, we take out a ham, separate the bones (this will be easy) and serve.

Stuffed lamb leg

If you do not know how to prepare a delicious dish for the holiday, then pay attention to this recipe. Stuffed lamb leg, baked in the oven - a chic dish for a celebration. The dish will be an excellent choice for those who do not like to spend a lot of time at the oven. Due to the large volumes, the whole family will be able to eat for several days. For the filling, different mushrooms or even mixtures thereof are suitable. For aroma, you can use caraway, rosemary and other spices. Spices only emphasize the taste of a special kind of meat.

Ingredients:

• lamb leg - 1.5 kg;
• mushrooms - 400 g;
• olive oil - 2 tbsp. l
• a mixture of peppers, caraway seeds, salt as needed.

Cooking method

1. Wash the mushrooms under running water, soak in a bowl.
2. To clean mutton from excess fat, remove bones through small incisions.
3. Mix olive oil with spices and salt, grate meat and leave for an hour.
4. Pour crushed mushrooms into a heated frying pan. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. Put the prepared mushrooms into cuts in the meat.
6. Rewind incisions with threads or close with skewers.
7. Put a foot on a greased baking sheet and bake at a temperature of 200 C for 80 minutes.

With rosemary

If lamb is not a typical dish for our region, then in France it is cooked very often. As additional ingredients, rosemary and garlic are mainly used. Such spices add a special flavor to the dish. Lamb leg with rosemary is very easy to prepare, it turns juicy and soft. Her secret consists in a special pickling recipe and temperature, which will allow the meat to preserve all the vitamins, while not remaining raw.

Ingredients:

• young lamb - 1.5 kg;
• garlic - 3 cloves;
• rosemary - 5 branches;
• red wine - 150 g;
• butter - 200 g;
• salt and spices as needed.

Cooking method

1. Wash the meat, leave at room temperature.
2. Melt the butter and pour it into a bowl. Add chopped or squeezed garlic, rosemary leaves, salt and other spices to the mass. Stir the marinade with a fork.
3. Cut the cooled mutton deep several times so that the depth of the holes makes it possible to stick a finger inside.
4. Generously coat the lamb leg with marinade, paying particular attention to the incisions.
5. Put the drumstick on the oiled baking sheet, cover with foil. Put in an oven preheated to 200 C for 40 minutes.
6. After the time has passed, remove the foil and leave the lamb leg in the oven for another 50 minutes.
7. To prepare the sauce, heat the wine well, add butter and a tablespoon of flour. Mix until smooth.
8. Before serving baked lamb leg, pour meat on the sauce.

In the test

The dishes in the dough are especially juicy, as all the liquid remains inside. Appetizing crust gives the dish not only a more attractive appearance, but also adds satiety. Lamb leg in pastry, baked in the oven, is suitable for the main dish on the gala table, as well as for every day. To cook it, you need to remember a couple of simple secrets described in this recipe.

Ingredients:

• lamb leg - 1 kg .;
• puff pastry - 200 g;
• tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
• capers - 1 tbsp. l .;
• garlic - 10 teeth;
• anchovies - 4 pcs.;
• olives - 100 g;
• eggs - 1 pc.;
• cilantro - a small bunch;
• pepper mixture, salt as needed.

Cooking method

1. Wash the back of the lamb, free from excess fat and lived.
2. Carefully remove the bone, so that later it turns out to form a roll.
3. Peel the garlic, chop or use the garlic.
4. In the leg, make several deep cuts, insert the teeth into them.
5. Fold the meat so that it turns out roll, fasten with a thread.
6. Generously grease the knuckle with salt and a mixture of peppers, spread with oil.
7. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Place the baking sheet with baking paper.
8. Place the meat in the oven, drizzle with olive oil, put caraway seeds. Leave to cook for 50 minutes.
9. To prepare token, grind greens, olives, capers, tomatoes. Add olive oil, anchovies and a couple of garlic cloves to the resulting mass. Beat all the ingredients until smooth.
10. Remove the shank from the oven, cool, generously grease with topenade.
11. Roll out the puff pastry, wrap it with lamb, cover the “wrapper” with a raw egg.
12. Preheat the oven to 180 With the oven, put the dish on for 45 minutes.
13. Serve baked mutton with dough in portions.

Oven lamb marinade

The key to a delicious dish is good meat, but do not forget about the importance of marinade. He is able to transform the dish, reveal it from the best side. A special sauce will not only add flavor, but also help make hard meat soft, kill a specific smell if you were not able to get a young lamb. A simple lamb leg marinade in an oven based on olive oil and spices will be inexpensive, but will make a baked dish very tasty.

Ingredients:

• olive oil - 4 tbsp. l .;
• mustard - 2 tbsp. l .;
• rosemary - 5 branches;
• garlic - 6 cloves;
• spices, salt.

Cooking method

1. Squeeze the garlic through the garlic in olive oil with mustard.
2. Pour spices and salt into the resulting mass.
3. Stir everything until smooth, grease the meat.

Video

Want to drive a real man crazy for years to come ??? I think this recipe will break even the most persistent hearts.

As my grandmother said, a blessed memory to her, the path to the man’s heart lies through the stomach. Practice has confirmed this.

I bring to your attention a recipe for meat lovers, or rather ram lovers. Those who love and appreciate meat dishes will definitely fall in love with this recipe.

Children are very they are picky in the choice of dishes, and we will please even the children by preparing the lamb leg in the oven.

To cook lamb in the oven we need:

• lamb, namely lamb leg
• rosemary
• garlic
• olive oil
• salt, pepper, cilantro seeds
• red pepper, paprika
• baking bag

How to cook a lamb leg in the oven

The choice of good meat should be entrusted to the husband, because only a man can smell the most delicious piece). Lamb in the market is not cheap, but these costs will cover those emotions that your beloved will give you after eating lamb.

So, the legs of the ram are bought, we remove all the extra veins and films. Salt and pepper gently rubbing all the salt, pepper, love and tenderness, positive energy into the lamb pulp.

We take up the sauce: olive oil or sunflower oil 3 tablespoons, a pinch of cilantro seeds, garlic 3-4 good cloves, minced in garlic gum, be sure to add rosemary!

Rosemary is better than fresh, but if this is not, then dried is quite suitable, but rosemary is the MOST main secret for lamb in the oven.

Coat the lamb leg with this sauce and conjure love and consent.

We give time for pickling lamb, I think 1-3 hours is enough. If you want, you can put lamb for a day to marinate in the refrigerator.

Put the pickled lamb leg in a baking bag, tie it tightly on the sides so that the juice does not leak out in any case. And we put the mutton in the oven for 1.5 hours at 130 degrees so that it warms up.

You can’t forbid living smartly, we prepared two mutton legs at once. The second was intended as an ancestral gift.

Time flies and smells slowly fill the whole apartment, the aroma is one that really drives you crazy. Poor neighbors)))

We add the temperature in the oven to 200 degrees. And another 1-2 hours we wait, hope and believe. Sometimes we look into the oven, if the meat on the bone began to go away, then the lamb in the oven is ready.

We immediately got the first leg, because we salted. And we’ll leave the second leg of the lamb in the oven, open the bag so that it is fried with a crust.

Sharpen sharply sharply knife and get ready to eat. Vegetables to garnish. Baked lamb leg served to the table!

And those who love meat with a crust, we invite to the table a little later, after 10 minutes.

I will accept all the comments! P.S. THANKS HUGE NICHOLAS! A friend of the Kolya family introduced us to this recipe, for which he bowed low!

Lamb legs - an offal, but at the same time a very useful part of lamb. The most important thing is to choose a quality product. On the market you can find both the legs of a one-year-old lamb and the legs of a two-month-old tender lamb. The youth of the legs is an important criterion for their choice.

The age of lamb can be very simply determined using weights: the leg of the milk lamb will weigh about 2 kg, while the older leg of the lamb will “pull” up to 5 kg.

High-quality lamb has a delicate pink color and a small amount of fat (see photo).

How to cut and cook?

The preparation of a lamb leg always begins with its thorough processing. It is recommended to remove the layer immediately, this is done in order to rid the meat of the specific smell of lamb. For the same purpose, you should soak your foot in cold water for 12 hours, changing the water every hour.

Cut the leg with a well-sharpened knife. During chopping, bone fragments could remain on the meat, which should certainly be removed. The foot is treated very carefully, without rushing, so as not to damage the meat. All excess pieces of pulp along the large bone should also be cut off. From meat scraps you can cook goulash, warm salad or fry with liver.  The leg is held by the thin part, carefully sticking a well-sharpened knife between the meat and lard. The blade of the knife gradually exfoliates the fat from the leg, gently steaming the grease film. Then the film is removed from the leg with one jerk. Pocket with fat contains too much iron, which makes it difficult to digest meat. The remaining fat is carefully removed with a knife, trying not to damage the leg itself, it is washed and dried. A small amount of fat that remains on the surface of the leg will give the meat an appetizing golden crust. Next, the leg is prepared according to the culinary recipe, for some dishes it is cut into small pieces or used whole.

Stuffed lamb leg stuffed with herbs, scented rosemary in combination with hot garlic is great. An incision is made on the surface of the legs with a sharp knife, rosemary and garlic are placed inside the incision. The stuffed leg is placed on a baking dish, on both sides the meat is rubbed with black pepper and salt. In order to form a golden crust during baking, sprinkle brown sugar on the leg.  To improve the color of the meat, you can sprinkle it with paprika.

Cooking use

Lamb legs are cooked in a variety of ways. So, they are pickled, baked in the oven, stuffed with spices. Lamb goes well with the classic marinade, which consists of vinegar, water, spices. Exotic lovers cook leg of lamb with honey, mustard, wine. In the sleeve, the leg is always cooked in marinade, but you can fry or bake meat by rubbing it with spices, which are suitable fragrant herbs, spicy seasonings and even dried fruits. Chefs recommend cooking lamb with rosemary, basil, pepper, paprika, chili, cilantro, garlic. You can stuff lamb legs with meat and apples, prunes, carrots and sweet peppers, bacon. Gourmets can stuff the leg with berries or anchovies.

The lamb legs baked in the dough are very tasty. On a pre-prepared leg, small incisions are made, which are filled with garlic cloves, herbs, oil. Top with a little salt and sprinkle in the oven. At this time, the dough is rolled so large that it can be wrapped in a leg. Lamb leg wrapped in dough, greased with a beaten egg. Baked meat for 40 minutes, served with baked vegetables and herbs. Lamb is baked to a moderate degree of roasting, inside the meat should be pink. Stewed lamb is baked for more than an hour.

In England, lamb legs are served with mint sauce.

Mint not only goes well with lamb, but also helps to kill the specific smell of this meat, which not everyone likes.

The sauce is prepared very simply: a few tablespoons of sugar are dissolved in boiling water to get sugar syrup, then fresh mint leaves are poured with wine vinegar, sugar syrup is added in a few minutes.

How to pickle lamb leg and recipes for the best pickles?

To deliciously marinate a lamb leg, you do not need to use any special ingredients for this.  Every housewife in the house has all the necessary products.

Marinating the lamb leg for further baking in the oven is as follows. A leg of lamb (weighing up to two kilograms) needs to be washed well, dried and made on the meat small incisions up to two centimeters deep. Then, one garlic clove should be inserted into each incision (eight cloves will be needed). Next, squeeze the juice from one lemon into a separate bowl, add two tablespoons of rosemary and mustard powder, as well as table salt and black pepper to your taste, stirring well. Ready marinade should be greased with a leg of lamb, wrapped meat in foil and put in the refrigerator for a day.

After a specified period of time, pickled lamb leg must be removed from the foil and put in a special container for baking in the oven. First, for twenty minutes, pickled meat must be baked at a temperature of about two hundred degrees, and then reduce it to one hundred and eighty and cook for about one hour. The baked leg of the lamb will turn out to be very juicy, aromatic and tasty.

In addition to the classical method of pickling a meat product, other recipes for the preparation of marinades are also distinguished.

Lamb leg marinade	How to pickle
In cognac	In a bowl for preparing the marinade, you need to combine three tablespoons of brandy, two tablespoons of lemon juice, five tablespoons of sunflower oil, table salt, black pepper and spices at your discretion. The mixture obtained is well smeared with a leg of lamb.  After thirty minutes, the meat will be ready for further cooking.
In red wine	Two hundred milliliters of red wine should be poured into a deep container, the same amount of sunflower oil, pour a bunch of chopped parsley, squeezed juice of one lemon, two leaves of bay leaves and a pair of pepper peas, one carrot cut into rings and a couple of onions, sliced \u200b\u200bin half rings. Place the clean leg of lamb in the marinade for twenty-four hours and put in the refrigerator.
	Wash the leg of lamb and about a hundred grams of fat tail fat in a deep container and pour five hundred milliliters of light beer. Then add the peeled garlic head there, half a teaspoon of thyme, rosemary, basil, hot ground red pepper and a teaspoon of paprika, stir well. Put the meat aside to pickle (at room temperature) for eight hours, then put it in the refrigerator for another eight hours. Over time, take the leg of lamb and fat out of the marinade.   Garlic also needs to be obtained, chopped and mixed with two tablespoons of olive oil and mustard.  The finished mixture must be greased with meat. The pickled leg of lamb is ready for further baking.
For barbecue	Combine olive oil, onions, chopped in half rings, garlic, chopped herbs, salt and ground pepper to your taste in a container. Lamb leg should be greased with this mixture and put in the refrigerator for twenty-four hours.
For tandoor	Initially, you need to immerse the lamb leg in very salty water (salt to your taste) and leave it overnight. After the meat must be grated with a spicy mixture for lamb marinade and put garlic cloves in the lamb leg (you need a head), also add a little chopped greens.   Wrap the meat in cling film and put in the refrigerator for about ten hours.
On yogurt	In a shallow bowl, mix two hundred milliliters of natural yogurt, two chopped garlic wedges, two tablespoons of chopped mint leaves, one teaspoon of ground paprika and red pepper. Carefully grease the leg of the lamb with the finished mixture and put it in the refrigerator for twelve hours.
On kefir	In a deep pan, put two onions, cut into thin rings, a little basil, cilantro, parsley, coriander to your taste and pour about five hundred milliliters of kefir. Lamb leg should be marinated in this mixture for about ten hours.
On a mineral water	Lower the leg of the lamb into the pan and pour four hundred milliliters of mineral water, add three small onions, cut into thin rings, herbs, black pepper and salt to your taste. The meat is marinated for twenty-four hours in the refrigerator.
With pomegranate juice	About two hundred milliliters of pomegranate juice, about fifty milliliters of good vodka should be poured into a fairly deep container, pour dried ground herbs and spices to your taste. Fold the lamb leg in the finished marinade and refrigerate for eight hours.
With lemon	Pour five hundred milliliters of cold water into an enamelled container, pour one tablespoon of granulated sugar, add two chopped onions, a lemon divided into four parts, a little leaf of bay leaves, parsley, cloves and table salt to your taste. Boil the marinade for about twenty minutes, then cool and place the lamb leg there for about six hours.
	About a hundred milliliters of natural liquid honey should be poured into a deep pan, the same amount of sunflower oil and soy sauce, add two ground garlic cloves, pour in table salt, black pepper at your discretion. Immerse the lamb leg in the marinade and put in the refrigerator for about four hours.
With vinegar	First you need to put two onions in a rather deep bowl, chopped in half rings, five chopped garlic cloves, one sprig of rosemary, add a pinch of thyme, table salt and black pepper to your taste, pour about a hundred milliliters of olive oil, three tablespoons of nine-percent table vinegar and well to interfere. Lower the lamb leg in the marinade for about twelve hours.

In any marinade, the lamb leg will turn out to be very appetizing and fragrant.

Below is a video on how to bake lamb legs on coals.

Lamb legs in the oven

There are several recipes for cooking lamb leg in the oven. Before proceeding directly to baking, it is necessary to fry the legs in sunflower oil to a delicious crust. Then the lamb legs are sent to the oven preheated to 250 degrees, baked for 10 minutes on each side, constantly turning the meat. In order to bake the legs well, they should be kept in the oven for 20 minutes.

The pickled leg in the sleeve is baked for 1 hour. When baking unroasted meat, the lamb is kept in the oven for at least an hour. A little water is poured into the mold; after half an hour, the leg is poured with juice that has allowed the meat to be left in the oven for another 20 minutes. To make the meat as juicy as possible, it should be baked at a temperature of 145 degrees Celsius.  Lamb leg is served on a large dish, decorated with rosemary leaves. They eat meat hot, while the cooled meat is perfect for slicing, served with mustard or sauce.

Since lamb is considered fatty meat, vegetables and mashed potatoes can be served as a side dish. Lamb legs go well with pita bread, herbs, fresh vegetable salads. Traditionally, lamb serves red sweet or semi-sweet wine.

Lamb leg in the sleeve

Many housewives prefer to bake lamb in the sleeve. Previously, the lamb leg should be marinated. Marinade can be based on wine vinegar, fragrant herbs. You can marinate meat in honey, soy sauce. Gently with a sharp knife in the pulp make punctures and rub with a mixture of herbs. They put the leg in a sleeve, knotted and left to marinate for 6 hours. The oven is heated to 220 degrees Celsius and baked leg for 20 minutes. Next, the sleeve is opened, with the juice that stood out during the baking process, pour meat and leave for another 20 minutes, the finished meat forms a golden crust.

In many countries of Europe, lamb leg is traditionally baked for Easter dinner. This dish looks very appetizing and exudes an amazing aroma of fried meat. Lamb legs will become a table decoration at any holiday.

How to fry and boil?

It takes a little patience and effort to fry a lamb leg. Initially, you need to cook a lamb marinade.  To do this, mix in a shallow container sunflower oil, chopped greens, juice of one lemon, chopped garlic, ground pepper, salt to your taste. Carefully rub the lamb leg with the finished mixture, wrap it in food foil and put it in the refrigerator for twenty-four hours. Over time, the meat will need to be removed from the refrigerator and allowed to lie down for about thirty minutes at room temperature. Then we remove the foil from the meat, and put the lamb leg on a baking sheet and put in the oven for frying at a temperature of two hundred and thirty degrees. Every fifteen minutes, the meat needs to be turned over. After thirty minutes, the temperature in the oven should be reduced to one hundred and eighty degrees and fry the meat until cooked.

To check if the lamb leg is ready or not, you need to pierce the meat with a knife. If white juice comes out, then the dish is ready.  If the juice is with blood, the meat should be a little fried.

As soon as the lamb leg is ready, it must be wrapped in foil and covered with a towel for cooling.

In addition to frying, lamb leg can be boiled. To do this, put the product in a pan covered with enamel and pour completely with water, adding peppercorns and table salt (one liter of water will require two peas and one teaspoon of salt). Boil over low heat for about an hour and a half. Then salt again and boil for another twenty minutes. Boiled lamb leg is ready. For cooking, cooks are advised to take only the rear legs of a lamb.

How to soak a lamb leg?

To soak a lamb leg, you must first rinse the meat well and make small cuts on it at least two centimeters deep. Then rub abundantly on the leg of lamb with table salt, a spicy mixture of ground rosemary with thyme and grease with olive oil. Pack the meat in food film and put it in the refrigerator for about twenty-four hours. After the lapse of time, the lamb leg must be baked until half ready in the oven at a temperature of two hundred degrees, and then let the product cool.

Now we begin the smoking process. To do this, you need a barbecue and skewer, on which you need to plant meat. Skewer with a leg of lamb should be placed over the smoke and smoke meat for about an hour and a half, periodically turning.

You can also make cold smoked lamb leg. It is best to cook the hind legs of a lamb. So, the meat is well washed and dried. Make a marinade by mixing two tablespoons of a spicy mixture (dill, garlic, pepper, coriander, parsley) with five grams of granulated sugar, twenty grams of nitrite salt and sodium chloride (about five hundred grams will be required). Spices need to rub the leg of lamb, wrap it in cling film and put in the refrigerator for exactly seven days.

After a week, the lamb leg should be removed from the film and hung in the cold for drying for about five days. After the specified period of time, you can immediately proceed to the very smoking of meat. In a smokehouse, the temperature of cold smoke should not exceed twenty-five degrees. The cooking process lasts about ten hours.

After the lamb leg is ready, it needs to be dried. To do this, hang the meat in a dark, cool place for seven days.  In a week, a delicious smoked lamb leg will be ready to eat. The shelf life of the product is about two months. Keep only in the refrigerator.