Butterflied Leg of Lamb With Bay Leaves

Asked by denysm. Answered on 12th June 2015

Full question

I am hoping to cook the butterfiled lamb dish this weekend for my partner's family (first time meeting them!). If I was to do it with a leg of lamb with the bone still in what would I need to tweak with this other than the cooking time. Many thanks

Our answer

Nigella's Butterflied Leg Of Lamb With Bay Leaves and Balsamic Vinegar (from Nigellissima and on the Nigella website) is made with a leg of lamb that has had the bone removed and is butterflied (i.e. opened out into a flat layer of meat). The beauty of this recipe is that the large surfance area of meat makes it easy for the flavours of the garlic, bay leaves and balsamic vinegar to penetrate the meat. The lamb also cooks very quickly and is easy to carve.

If you are cooking a whole leg of lamb then you would need to cut slits all over the meat and insert slivers of garlic and bay leaf. It would be best to do this the day before, then cover and leave the lamb in the fridge overnight, so the flavours can infuse into the meat. You would have to pour over the vinegar before cooking but it will just slide off the whole leg of lamb as you pour. You would also need to adjust the cooking time quite significantly. You may like to look at Nigella's recipe for Moroccan Roast Lamb (from Nigella Summer) as this uses a spice paste made with garlic and corainder to marinate the lamb overnight before cooking.