– 1 medium-sized leg of lamb
– 1/3 cup black olives, pitted
– 6 – 10 cloves of garlic
– 1 lemon, sliced*
– 3 bay leaves
– 1 onion, diced
– 1/2 cup red wine
– 1/2 cup water or stock
– Salt and freshly ground pepper
* If the lemons have a thickish rind I’d recommend getting rid of as much pith as possible. My sauce turned out a tad bitter.
Preheat the oven to 150C
If you can, take the leg of lamb out of the fridge about 1/2 an hour before you start cooking. Blend or pound the olives and the garlic until a smooth paste is formed. Smear this paste all over the leg of lamb, concentrating on the fleshy bits.
Take your large sealable pot (or roasting pan that you can cover with foil, whatever). Put the onion, red wine and water/stock into the base of the pan with the lamb leg. Season well, but go easy on the salt if the olives are already pretty salty. Lay the lemon slices and bay leaves over the lamb.
Put the lid on, pop in the oven and turn the heat down to about 110C. Cook for 3 to 4 hours, checking occasionally that the pan hasn’t dried out (if it has, add a splash more water).
I found the resultant pan juices to be a tad insipid, so you might want to try removing the leg of lamb at the end of cooking and reducing the juice on top of the stove.
Very good with polenta and steamed greens.