South Africans don’t need an excuse to light up the fire. Come rain or shine. And whether its breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, there is a braai taking place somewhere. Apart from the food always being good, its also about the whole social experience. While waiting for the fire, there is a long gathering that can last for hours on end. So next time you want to prepare a leg of lamb, don’t pop it into the oven. Try it on the open fire.
Ingredients
1 whole leg of lamb
Marinade
½ cup olive oil
3 lemons
Handful of mint leaves
1 garlic bulb (approx 15 cloves)
2 onions
½ cup beef broth
5 tbls dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
Directions
- Prepare your fire.
- Place the leg of lamb on a platter or breadboard. Make deep cuts over the fat with a sharp knife.
- Add all the ingredients for the marinade into a blender.
- Rub the leg of lamb with half the mixture of the marinade.
- Place the leg of lamb on the rotisserie.
- With a silicone brush, rub more marinade on the lamb every 15 minutes.
- This will rotate over the fire for approx 2 hours, or until the inside temperature reached 65⁰C. The meat will be medium-well done at this temperature.
- Transfer lamb to a platter or carving board and let rest at least 15 minutes before carving.
Notes
Why let the meat rest? You want to give the juices a chance to settle before you cut into the meat. There’s nothing more depressing to a foodie than cutting into a juicy piece of meat and watching all the yummy juices escape onto the cutting board.
You can keep leftovers in the fridge, in a sealed container, for up to 4 days. You can heat leftovers in the microwave or you can eat cold meat slices. Delicious with a bit of mustard.