Lemony Lamb Shoulder with Potatoes en Papillote

With Easter coming up, I thought I'd share one of my all-time favourite recipes for feeding a crowd, and a dish that appears in my cookbook. For over fifteen years this heavenly dish of slow-cooked, fragrant, fall-apart lamb has been my preferred choice for a feast. I used to serve it with rustling golden roast potatoes but, as it's very rich, these days I pack tiny spuds in baking paper well ahead of time, sling them in the oven and bring the packets to the table all puffed and golden and painted with cheering messages.

Photograph by Michael Le Grange. Image © Random House Struik 2012.

A large bone-in lamb shoulder will feed six hungry people, but not eight, so I suggest you order two smaller shoulders, which will leave you with plenty of leftovers. If you have a second oven, you can bake the potatoes at 180 °C; they will take 30-40 minutes.

Paint a message on each parcel using a fine paintbrush or calligraphy nib dipped in soy sauce. If you're not confident about your penmanship, print out the words in a font of your choice, then lay the baking paper on top and trace them with a soy-sauced nib.

What I love about this recipe - apart from its sticky-skinned succulence and unbeatable aroma - is that you can prepare it well in advance and leave it to do its sweet thing in the oven while you skip through the meadow gathering Easter eggs.

Lemony Lamb Shoulder with Potatoes en Papillote

2 large shoulders of lamb, bone in, or 2 legs of lamb
12 fat cloves garlic, peeled
½ tsp (2.5 ml) flaky sea salt
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
3 Tbsp (45 ml) good-quality dried oregano
2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
2 large onions, peeled and sliced milled black pepper
1½ cups (375 ml) dry white wine, plus more for topping up
juice of 2 large lemons, plus more for topping up
2 bunches flat-leaf parsley, or rocket or watercress

For the potatoes:
2 kg tiny new potatoes
salt and milled black pepper
4 Tbsp (60 ml/60 g) butter
sprigs of fresh thyme
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
a little melted butter, for brushing

Heat the oven to 150 °C. Cut any large blobs of fat off the lamb. Finely grate six of the garlic cloves, place in a bowl and stir in the salt, lemon zest, 1 Tbsp (15 ml) of the oregano and the olive oil. Using a sharp knife, pierce the thick parts of the lamb (top and bottom) in 8-10 places, at a diagonal, to a depth of 3 cm. Push a little garlic paste deep into each cut and rub any remaining paste over the top of the joints.

Put the onion slices and remaining garlic cloves into a large roasting pan and place the lamb on top. Sprinkle with the remaining oregano and plenty of black pepper, pour in the wine and lemon juice and cover tightly with two layers of heavy foil. Place in the oven. After 3 hours, remove the foil, turn the heat down to 140 °C and switch off the oven fan. Season the lamb with salt, to taste.

Roast, basting now and then with the pan juices, for a further 1 hour, or until the lamb is brown and sticky and falling off the bone. Top up with more wine and lemon juice if necessary: the liquid in the pan should be about 1 cm deep.

For the potatoes, cut out eight circles of baking paper, each the size of a dinner plate. Prick the potatoes and divide them between the paper circles. Season with salt and pepper and add a knob of butter, a sprig of thyme, a sprinkling of lemon zest, and any other flavourings you fancy.

Fold each circle in half to make a semicircle and tightly seal the edges by making small, overlapping pleats all the way round. Brush the tops of the parcels with melted butter and place on a baking sheet. An hour before you’re ready to serve the lamb, place the parcels in the oven and bake for the remaining time or until quite tender.  Lay a bed of flat-leaf parsley on a large platter and place the lamb on top.

Cover with foil and allow to rest for 15 minutes. Pour the juices from the pan into a small jug and skim off the fat. Serve hot, with the potato parcels, and pass the pan juices round in a jug.

Serves 6 if you’re using one shoulder; 12 if you use two.

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Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing

The most important criterion for me when I’m cooking for a small crowd (and I’m talking about 10 people or more) is that every key element of the dish can be prepared many hours in advance, then heated, assembled and dished up with minimum fuss, at the last moment, so it arrives at the table fresh, hot and delicious. This is the fourth in a series of recipes for Woolworths, pantry sponsors of MasterChef South Africa.

An easy way to stretch an expensive leg of lamb between many mouths.

Obviously this is not possible for MasterChef contestants faced with the challenge of catering for a horde (given the tight time-frames of reality TV).  But for home cooks, painstaking planning and preparation are the secrets to success when you’re expecting a flock of hungry guests. A recipe that allows you partly to cook the ingredients well ahead of time, without any significant loss of freshness, flavour or texture, is the best bet, because all you need do is take 20 minutes or so to finish them off in pan or oven, fling the dish together and carry it triumphantly to the table.

This recipe for a warm salad of garlicky, rosemaried lamb, baby potatoes and peas allows you to do just that, and it’s economical in the sense that it stretches a single leg of lamb (which is ruinously expensive these days, for reasons I cannot understand) between many mouths. In the recipe below, I’ve given instructions for preparing the dish well ahead of time and then assembling it at the last minute.

You’ll save a lot of money if you buy a whole leg of lamb and debone it yourself (see Cook’s Notes, below), or ask your butcher to do it for you.

It’s important to serve this warm, as it’s the heat of the potatoes and lamb that releases the minty, mustardy, lemony flavours of the dressing.

My other recipes for Woolworths #wooliespantry: 

Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt
Champ with Chives and Garlic
Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

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Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing

1 x 3.5 kg leg of lamb, deboned and butterflied
6 sprigs fresh rosemary
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil, plus extra for frying
a large lemon
milled black pepper
3.5 kg new potatoes
olive or sunflower oil, for frying
4 cups frozen baby peas
baby mint leaves, to garnish

For the dressing:
4 tsp (20 ml) good Dijon mustard
1 large clove garlic, peeled and crushed
6 Tbsp (90 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ tsp (2.5 ml) white sugar
flaky sea salt
milled pepper
1 cup (250 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
a big handful of fresh mint leaves (about ¾ cup, loosely packed)

Lay the butterflied lamb, skin side down, in a large non-metallic dish. Scatter over the rosemary sprigs and garlic slices and drizzle with 3 Tbsp olive oil. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice over the lamb, then slice the squeezed-out lemon halves and arrange them on top of the lamb. Season well with milled black pepper (but no salt). Fold the lamb ‘butterfly’ in half to enclose the filling and cover the dish with clingfilm. Marinate in the fridge for 24 hours (a minimum of 12), turning the lamb over once or twice during that time.

Now prepare the potatoes. Cook them in plenty of boiling salted water for 10 minutes, or until just tender when pierced with the tip of a sharp knife, but not squashy or falling apart. Drain in a colander for 10 minutes, return them to the empty pot and cover.

To prepare the dressing, put the mustard, garlic, lemon juice, sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper into a bowl and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Whisk in the oil to form a smooth emulsion. Cover and set aside at room temperature.

Now sear the lamb (you can do this up to eight hours ahead and keep it, loosely covered with clingfilm, in the fridge). Heat 3 Tbsp oil in a large frying pan or a heavy-based roasting pan until blazing hot and shimmering, but not yet smoking. Scrape the garlic, rosemary and lemon slices off the lamb (don’t leave a trace of garlic behind, as it will turn bitter in the pan) and season with a little salt on both sides.

Sear the lamb in the hot oil for 4-5 minutes on each side, or until nicely browned and caramelised. Cover and set aside (at room temperature if you’re planning to assemble the dish within two hours, or in the fridge if you’re preparing this well in advance.)

About 45 minutes before you’re ready to serve the dish, heat the oven to 190 ºC. Put the lamb in a roasting pan and roast for 20-25 minutes, or until it’s cooked through, but still a pale rosy pink on the inside (how long this will take depends on your oven and the thickness of the lamb; see Cook’s Notes.) Cover loosely with foil and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, finely chop the mint leaves, stir them into the dressing and check the seasoning. Add a few tablespoons of water to the pot containing the potatoes, set it over a low heat and gently reheat for 7-10 minutes. Put the frozen peas into a pot of rapidly boiling salted water and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Cut the hot potatoes in half and arrange them on a large, warmed platter. Drain the peas and scatter them on top. Pour the pan juices that have accumulated under the lamb into the bowl containing the dressing and whisk well.

Cut the lamb into thin slices and arrange the pieces on top of the potatoes. Pour over just enough of the minty dressing to coat the potatoes and lamb, and garnish with small mint leaves. Check the seasoning and add more salt if necessary.

Serve immediately with a leafy green salad scattered with crunchy croutons.

With salad, serves  8-10.

Cook's Notes:

• It’s not difficult to debone a leg of lamb: use a very sharp knife to release the flesh from the bones, using long sweeping strokes. Don’t worry if the lamb ‘butterfly’ looks a little ragged: no one will notice once it’s sliced. If you’re not confident about doing this, have a look on the Internet for an instructional video.
• To test whether the lamb is done to perfection, cut a small, deep slit in the thickest part of the meat. If it’s still a bloody pink inside, let it roast for 5-7 more minutes, then check again.
• You can use large potatoes for this dish: boil them in their skins, taking care not to overcook them. Reheat them whole, then cut into thick slices.

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Sandwich-Press Chicken, Potato and Green Bean Salad

A quick sizzle between the plates of a sandwich press produces the most soft and succulent chicken strips imaginable, probably because they're very quickly cooked on both sides at the same time, and thus have no chance to stiffen or toughen, as they tend to do in a pan. Tossed with some hot spuds, snappy green beans and a garlicky lemon dressing, they make a most delicious warm salad. Of course you can make this using an ordinary frying pan, but if you do have a sandwich press, give this method a try. You'll never again cook chicken strips any other way.

This does work with deboned chicken breasts that have been flattened between two sheets of clingfilm (see Quick, Easy Sandwich-Press Chicken Breasts for Kids), but for best results, use a pack or two of slim chicken fillets, namely, the little 'extra' strip of chicken found on the underside of the breast.  I used some lovely pink fir potatoes, but any type of new potato will do. I've also added finely chopped rocket to this salad. Rocket is almost always served as a whole salad leaf (because it's so pretty, I imagine) but it's also very good treated as you would a herb leaf: try slicing or chopping it very finely and adding it to omelettes, mayonnaises, dressings, and so on.

Sandwich-Press Chicken, Potato and Green Bean Salad
400 g new potatoes
2 x 400 g packs chicken fillets
salt and milled black pepper
1 T (15 ml) olive oil
300 g fine green beans, stalk ends trimmed
a small bunch of  rocket, finely chopped

For the dressing:
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) Dijon mustard, or similar prepared mustard
4 T (60 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
a pinch of white sugar
200 ml extra-virgin olive oil

Cook the potatoes in plenty of boiling, salted water for 20-25 minutes, or until just tender. Fish them out of the pan and drain them in a colander, but leave the water behind in the pot.

In the meantime, make the dressing. Put the crushed garlic, salt, mustard, lemon juice and sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir the mixture until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Whisk in the olive oil to make a smooth emulsion. Set aside.

Heat the sandwich press for 5 minutes. Peel the plastic off the first pack of chicken strips and season them - without removing them from the pack - with salt and milled black pepper (or a seasoning salt of your choice). Open the sandwich press and pour the oil over the base. Close it briefly (stand well back) so the upper surface is coated with oil. Tip the chicken strips, salted side down, onto the base plate, quickly push them apart with a fork and close the press. Cook for a minute and a half to two minutes, or until there is no trace of pinkness when you cut through a strip. Tip the chicken strips into the bowl containing the dressing, and cook the second batch in the same way. Halve the warm potatoes (or leave them whole, if they're tiny), add them to the bowl containing the chicken and toss gently to coat.

Fill a bowl with iced water, add a handful of ice cubes and set to one side. Bring the water on the stove back up to the boil and throw in the beans. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until  just tender, but with a slight bite. Drain the beans, plunge them into the iced water and let them sit there for 5 minutes, or until they're quite cold.  Pat the beans dry with kitchen paper and add them to the mixing bowl along with the chopped rocket. Toss well, season to taste with salt and milled black pepper, tip onto a platter and serve immediately.

If you're making this in advance, cook the beans no less than 30 minutes before you serve the salad, as they will turn a muddy khaki if left to stand for too long.

Serves 6 as a main course; 8 as a side salad.

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Dill Baby Potatoes with Smoked-Salmon Mayonnaise, Deep-Fried Capers and Frizzled Dill

I'm a great fan of economical dishes that stretch a luxury ingredient between plenty of hungry people. Here's a new recipe I think you'll love: top-quality smoked salmon (or, in this case, local smoked trout) whizzed into an unctuous home-made mayonnaise, poured over hot new potatoes tossed in fresh dill, lemon juice and olive oil, and then topped with frizzled dill and crunchy deep-fried caper 'flowers'. You've never seen a mayo of such a pale and delicate pink!

I can't resist lovely earthy baby potatoes, boiled until just tender, and this is a new variation on one of my all-time favourite recipes, Hot Garlicky New Potatoes with a Cold & Silken Tuna Sauce.

Please don't be put off by the idea of making your own mayonnaise. It's really easy to do, and once you get the hang of it you'll be making your own mayo once a week. (Here's some great advice about making mayonnaise.)  I've given instructions for using a blender or food processor here. If you don't have such a gadget, you'll need to make the mayo by hand, and pulverise the salmon with a mortar and pestle.

In this dish, I've used Franschhoek company Three Streams's superb cold-smoked trout (which I think is one of the very best ingredients the Cape has to offer) but you can use any local brand of really good smoked salmon.

To my bafflement and disappointment, no one in my family really appreciates dill. I regard this as one of the Rolls Royces of herbs (along with thyme) and it maddens me that the ungrateful wretches turn their noses up at dishes containing more than a whisper of it. If you're faced with such philistines, used finely chopped fresh parsley or chervil instead. The Greek yoghurt is there to add a slight tang and lightness to the mayo, but you can leave it out if you like.

I love the contrast of hot potatoes and chilled mayonnaise, so I suggest you make the mayo a few hours in advance.

Dill Baby Potatoes with Smoked-Salmon Mayonnaise, Deep-Fried Capers and Frizzled Dill

For the mayonnaise:
2 large free-range egg yolks, at room temperature
a small pinch of sea salt
1 tsp (5 ml) Hot English mustard powder (or Dijon Mustard)
200 ml light vegetable oil (such as sunflower or canola oil, or any other flavourless oil)
100 ml good olive oil
the juice of a large lemon
6 large slices of smoked salmon, chopped
a little hot water (see recipe)
3 T (45 ml) thick Greek yoghurt

For the potatoes:
1.2 kg baby potatoes (or enough for six)
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
5 T (75 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
salt and freshly milled black pepper
3 T (45 ml) finely chopped fresh dill (or parsley/chervil)

To garnish:
4 T (60 ml) light vegetable oil, such as sunflower oil
36 capers, drained of their brine
ten small sprigs of fresh dill
6 thin slices of smoked salmon

First make the mayonnaise. Put the egg yolks, salt and mustard powder into the (small) bowl or jug of a liquidiser, blender or food processor. (Or place them in a beaker, and use a stick blender.) Blend for a minute, until slightly frothy. Mix the vegetable oil and olive oil in a small jug with a pouring nozzle. Now slowly dribble the blended oils, in tiny increments to begin with, into the chute of the blender or food processor. Keep adding the oil, a little splash at a time, and within a few minutes you will see the egg mixture begin to thicken rather dramatically. At this point, add the oils in a slow and steady stream.  When the mixture becomes so thick that the blades of the liquidiser refuse to turn, add the lemon juice and smoked salmon pieces, and just enough hot water (add it teaspoon by teaspoon) to blend everything together into a thick, smooth, silky sauce. Season generously with black pepper, and add more salt if necessary. Decant into a mixing bowl, stir in the yoghurt and place in the fridge until you need it.

Put the new potatoes into a large pot, cover with cold water to which you have added the teaspoon of salt, and bring quickly to the boil. Turn down the heat slightly, and boil the potatoes briskly for 10-15 minutes, or until they are tender and cooked right through, but not falling apart.

Now make the fried capers and dill. Using a piece of kitchen paper, pat the capers quite dry. Heat the oil in a small sauce pan until very hot, but not smoking. Drop the dried capers into the oil and fry for a minute or so, or until they open up like flowers, and become very crispy. Remove the capers from the pan with a slotted spoon, drain well on kitchen paper and reserve. Add the dill sprigs to the oil, two at a time (stand back, as they will spit and sputter with great drama as they hit the oil).  Fry for 30-40 seconds, or until crisp.  Drain on kitchen paper and reserve.

Drain the new potatoes in a colander, and allow to cool for a five minutes. Cut them into thick slices, or halve them if they are very small. Place in a mixing bowl and add the olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter the chopped dill over the potatoes and very gently toss together until each slice is coated with oil and herbs. Strew the fried capers and crisped dill over the top.

Arrange the warm potatoes in a heap on a big platter, arrange a few whole slices of salmon on top, and bring to the table with the bowl of chilled salmon mayonnaise.

Serves 6 to 8. Print Friendly

Hot Garlicky New Potatoes with a Cold & Silken Tuna Sauce

I am an ardent fan of new potatoes, especially if they're dug fresh and tender from the earth (or, at least, if I can buy them within two or three days of Farmer X digging them up all fresh and tender).  With their lovely waxen flesh and squeaky little skins, baby potatoes are, to my mind, a prince among vegetables. What a shame, then, that new potatoes are so often treated as Cinderellas, and edged to the side of the plate, where they become a supporting act to the main meaty event. This recipe - a revamp of one of the earliest dishes I devised for this blog - celebrates new potatoes, and elevates them to what I hope is a starring role.

This beautiful salad/soup bowl was made by master potter David Walters of Franschhoek.

This recipe is inspired by the sublime Italian dish Vitello Tonnato - thin slices of cold poached veal coated in a silken sauce of mayonnaise, tuna, capers, lemon juice and olive oil. I'd tasted pale imitations of this dish once or twice, but it was only when I went to Italy for the first time in 1991 that I experienced (in a small, nondescript B&B in the Aoste region) the full glory of this dish. We were exhausted, my husband and I, having driven and argued all day, heading in our rented car for the Swiss border, with a shrieking and wet-nappied toddler strapped to the back seat. We checked grumpily into the first B&B we found en route, and to our fortune, Mama - a genuine, muttering, black-stockinged genius of a grandmother - was in the kitchen that night, weaving her particular Italian magic.

I can't remember many details of that meal, but I do remember Mama's Vitello Tonnato, and how my eyes rolled dreamily back in my head as I ate it.

I made the dish a couple of times in the years after our trip, using veal, but as this ingredient is not easy to find in South Africa, and scandalously expensive, I came up with a recipe with the same - or as close as I could get to Mama's original - sauce, but using,  instead of veal,  boiled baby spuds, which are briefly tossed in hot olive oil and garlic.

In my earlier recipe, I insisted on peeled potatoes. I've changed my mind about this since. Half the fun of eating a new potato is enjoying the earthy taste of its pale, papery skin. Peel the potatoes if you must, and good luck to you.

Three other changes to my earlier recipe: I've added snipped chives for a little oniony bite, and also lightened up the heavily mayonnaised dressing with some natural yoghurt. As a final improvement, and to add a little texture, I've deep-fried some capers so they open up into little crunchy flowers.

I suggest you serve this as a starter.

The sauce little dish, on the right, by master potter David Walters of Franschhoek, has a handy indented rim, designed so that you can rest a spoon on it.

Hot New Potatoes with a Cold & Silken Tuna Sauce

For the potatoes:
1.2 kg baby potatoes (or enough for six)
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
30 ml (2 T) olive oil
2 small cloves garlic, peeled

For the dressing:
1 tin tuna in oil, drained
2 large, good-quality anchovy fillets
3 T (45 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ cup (125 ml)  good mayonnaise (Hellman's, or home-made, but not salad cream)
½ cup (125 ml) thick natural yoghurt
50 ml olive oil
14 capers, drained of their brine
a pinch of salt (but taste the sauce first; the anchovy fillets may be salty enough)
freshly milled black pepper
a little hot water

To garnish:
36 capers, drained of their brine
2 T (30 ml) sunflower oil
finely snipped fresh chives

First make the dressing. Put all the ingredients, except the hot water, into the goblet of a blender and whizz at high speed, adding a teaspoonful of hot water at a time, until you have a smooth, silky sauce. The dressing should have the consistency of thick cream, or a thin custard. Process the dressing until it's absolutely smooth. Pour into a bowl, cover and chill for two to three hours.

Put the new potatoes into a large pot, cover with cold water to which you have added a teaspoon of salt, and bring quickly to the boil. Turn down the heat slightly, and boil the potatoes briskly for 10-15 minutes, or until they are tender and cooked right through, but not falling apart.

While they are cooking, crush the garlic to a fine paste. Heat the olive oil gently in a pan and stir in the crushed garlic. Fry gently for a minute or two, but don't allow the garlic to brown. Drain the potatoes thoroughly and cut each one in half.  Tip them into the saucepan containing the oil and garlic, and toss well to coat.

Pile the potatoes into a warmed dish, cover loosely with a tea towel and keep hot.

Now make the fried capers. Using a piece of kitchen paper, pat the capers quite dry.  Heat the oil in a small sauce pan until very hot, but not smoking. Drop the dried capers into the oil and fry  for a minute or so, or until they open up like flowers, and become very crispy. Remove the capers from the pan with a slotted spoon, drain well on kitchen paper, and pile into a little dish.

Using a pair of scissors, finely snip the chives and place them in a separate small dish.

Divide the hot potatoes between six warmed plates (or pile them on a big platter). Remove the cold tuna sauce from the fridge, decant into a small  jug, and pass it around the table, along with the fried capers and snipped chives..

Serves six. Print Friendly