Slow Roasted Lamb with Red Peppers

Slow roasted lamb with red peppers is a delicious combination of sweet, ever-so tender lamb coupled with syrupy port/wine sauce, refreshing mint, aromatic fresh thyme and juicy, red peppers and sweet cherry tomatoes. The lamb is so soft and well-cooked by the time it arrives on your plate, it will simply melt in your mouth. It cooks very gently over several hours and is worth every second of the wait. Simply put, it’s heavenly delicious.

Slow roasted lamb with red peppers

Serves 4 as a main course

1 shoulder of lamb

2 red onions quartered

2 tsp mint sauce

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp redcurrant jelly or red onion chutney

2 tsp mustard

1 cup of port

1 cup of red wine

2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

2 tbsp lard

4 red peppers, halved and deseeded

4 handfuls cherry tomatoes, rinsed

Salt and black pepper

How to prepare slow roasted lamb with red peppers

If you can prepare the lamb in advance, let it sit in the wine and port mix while being covered in the lard mixture overnight if possible. If not, then for as long as possible.

Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas 3.

In a bowl combine the lard, mustard, garlic, mint sauce, cranberry jelly or red onion chutney, thyme, salt and pepper. I find the easiest way to coat the lamb is just to scoop up the lard mixture in your hands and rub it into the lamb joints. Place the lamb in a large ovenproof casserole dish with a well-fitting lid.

Scatter the onions around the outside of the lamb and pour the wine and port into the dish being careful not to wash the lard mixture off the lamb. I let my lamb sit in a cool room overnight until I was ready to cook it.

I cooked my lamb covered for approximately 5 hours. One hour before ending your cooking, coat the red peppers with Balsamic vinegar and place on top of the lamb and scatter the cherry tomatoes in the juices.

Remove the lamb from the oven 30 minutes before eating and allow it to rest in the covered dish. Serve up with your favourite vegetables. I added couscous to soak up the delicious flavours.

For the couscous:

I boiled a pan of water and added the couscous (4 cups and rinsed), then turned off the heat and let the couscous absorb the water for 10 minutes or so. (The water was just covering the couscous before absorbing). There was no water to drain off, so after removing some of the fat out of the lamb pan, I added the couscous and stirred it around to absorb all the delicious flavours of the lamb, peppers and tomatoes. I served it with a side portion of broccoli.

Add salt and pepper to taste.