Chinese-Style Braised/Roasted Leg of Lamb, Part 2
Let's be quick about this. No blather about holiday neuroses. Sometimes, food's the thing. Real food at that. The big task for this recipe is done. Now for the finish.
Yesterday, I left you with a gross picture of the thing in its cooking liquid. (Here, if you missed it.) And believe me, it gets worse. Overnight, it halfway congeals and becomes downright lurid. Don't despair. (But I'll spare you that photo.)
The next day, take the leg out of the fridge. Transfer the leg to a clean roasting pan--preferably a shiny one to get the most reflective heat. But even the broiler pan will work. Pour (and scrape) all the poaching liquid into a medium saucepan and bring it to a boil over high heat.
Meanwhile, position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F.
Don't do those last two steps out of order. First, the leg needs to begin to come back to room temperature to cook properly. A cold leg in a hot oven will burn on the outside before it roasts to tender lusciousness on the inside. Second, the braising liquid at its boil needs a head start on the roasting.
Once the oven's preheated, put the leg in its roasting pan inside. Continue boiling down the braising liquid until it's reduced by about half. No need to measure, of course. Just eyeball it.
Once it's right, use it to baste the roasting leg. Often. In other words, don't go mow the lawn. You don't need to hover, but consider every 15 minutes a good goal. And baste liberally, really slathering up the lamb.
In the end, roast the leg about 1 1/2 hours. There's no internal temperature here since the cooking has been a two-step process. Rather, look for a deeply glazed and lacquered joint. It should look like this:
It should also be quite tender. Here's how to tell: stick a meat fork into the lamb at a thick point. If there's any resistance as you pull the fork out, the meat's not ready. The fork should slip right out.
One note: the meat is almost falling apart at this point, so use large spatulas and good planning to get it onto a cutting board. (Put the dog outside.) Wait 5 to 10 minutes (promise: it makes the meat more tender), then slice the lamb. Some bits may fall apart in hunks. Excellent! As you can see from the top picture on this post, Bruce cuts up any bits of the crunchy crust that fall off and sprinkles them among the slices on the platter.
He also serves it with cold cucumbers in peanut sauce. And he puts small nests of cooked mung bean noodles on the plates. Stunning! And a treat for Easter dinner.
UPDATE:
In this recipe, Bruce calls for bottled bean sauce or hoi sin sauce--but Celia, that inveterate cook and frequenter voice here, suggests homemade plum sauce. Wow. If you want to know more about how she makes it, check it out here.
Mark Scarbrough | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 at 9:01AM | in Bruce's Asian Obsession, Comfort Food, Hunks of Meat, Main Courses braise, chinese, comfort food, holiday, leg of lamb, roasted
Reader Comments (6)
Oh my, it makes my heart beat just a little faster!
We've spent the weekend making more plum sauce in preparation.. :)
Happy Easter! And thank you for this recipe - we had it for Easter Sunday dinner. I had to increase the amount of plum sauce, as our homemade version isn't quite as sweet or thick as the bought stuff. I do think hoi sin would be a better match, as per Bruce's original recipe, but it was so nice to be able to use our own sauce as an ingredient! I had to actually stop my sons eating, they would have kept going all night otherwise! We served it with a side of leeks, Chinese cabbage and broccoli. I took this photo of the finished dish to show you! :)
Cheers, Celia
Celia:
Weren't the little bits of burned stuff terrific? My favorite part.
Bruce spoke to an old Chinese cook who told him that that braising sauce is one of the classic Chinese "mother" sauces. She claimed to save hers back in the freezer and use it again and again, just adding more broth to it if it needed it.
I think the safety issues right there are pronounced, if not insane, but I do like the notion that this sauce is some sort of classic.
Happy Easter right back to you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the dish.
M.
Mark, it is indeed very common to use master stocks, but rarely ones with red wine in them (simply because red wine isn't common in Chinese cooking). More often Chinese cooking wine or no wine at all. My mother always said the secret was to boil the stock up again afterwards, and then you could refrigerate it and use it next time. I have more forward thinking friends who freeze their master stock and reuse it each time, "refreshing" it as they go. But I'm with you, personally I find it a bit daunting healthwise to a. constantly freeze-defrost-refreeze the same stock, and b. keep reusing stock which has had raw meat and goodness knows what else in it each time!
Thanks again for the recipe - any suggestions for leftovers? :) Actually, I think lamb and plum sauce sandwiches might be the order of the day.. :)
Celia
Oh, right. The red wine. I forgot to mention that. The original "master" sauce has Shaoxing in it--but Bruce revamped it with red wine (and altered some of the spices because of the increased sweetness of the red wine). Yes, you're right: no red wine in traditional Chinese sauces. But again, he morphed this with red wine to make it a Bruce-meets-Asian dish, his favorite type, hands down.
Leftovers? I'd say sandwiches, for sure. Or try the meat in a cheese and grits casserole. Or cheese and polenta main course. Yum.
M.