Wine With . . . Slow-Roasted Lamb Stuffed with Rice and Spinach

Wine With . . . Slow-Roasted Lamb Stuffed with Rice and Spinach

By Paul Lukacs and Marguerite Thomas

Our goal this week was to develop a recipe that isn’t too labor intensive but that will also be a great dish for red wine. We certainly love traditional garlic-scented leg of lamb, cooked to pink perfection, but this time we turn to the melt-in-the-mouth texture of slow-roasted lamb. Among the many advantages of gentle slow cooking is that seasonings get fully integrated into the meat’s own flavors. We like what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says about slow cooking in The River Cottage Meat Book: “Another important thing to emphasize about slow cooking it that, paradoxically, it doesn’t have to be time consuming. At least, it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time.  Half an hour or less is often enough to prepare the ingredients, get them in a pot.  Then, like the best wine, all you have to do is leave well alone for a small miracle to occur. Only in this case the job will be done in a matter of hours rather than years.”

Lamb Stuffed with Rice and Spinach

Serves 6-8

With the stuffing built right into the roast, this is virtually a one-dish meal. We served nothing more with it than delicious crusty bread, good butter, and a big, fresh green salad on the side. If you have more stuffing than you need for the lamb you can heat the extra and serve extra dollops of it too, or else save it and use for stuffing pork chops or chicken.

Kitchen string for tying the roast
1 7-10 pound leg of lamb, boned and butterflied
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
8 ounces mushrooms, coarsely chopped
About 1 cup chopped mixed fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme, mint, oregano and rosemary
3 tablespoons olive oil, mixed use
8 ounces spinach, chopped
¼ teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or cayenne pepper to taste)
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
2 cups cooked rice
Salt
About ½ cup white wine, stock or water

Salt and pepper the lamb, at least an hour before cooking and preferably the day before. Refrigerate the meat until ready to cook.
Place the onion, garlic, mushrooms and fresh herbs in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is a sort of coarse mush. Heat two tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet and add the mushroom mixture, cooking it over medium heat for about ten minutes (raise the heat to cook off excess moisture if necessary). Stir in the spinach and continue cooking until it wilts. Add the spices and the rice. Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. Refrigerate the mixture until ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Open up the butterflied lamb and spread the rice mixture over it, leaving about half an inch of meat around the edges uncovered. Roll the meat up as neatly as possible, holding it together with string wherever needed (don’t worry if this isn’t a particularly neat-looking job; it is still going to taste delicious).

Grease the bottom of a roasting pan with the remaining oil (if you’ve used your hand to do this, coat the outside of the roast with the excess oil. Place the lamb in the pan, pour the wine or other liquid over it, and put it in the oven. Cook for about 30 minutes, then turn the heat down to 250° and continue roasting for another three to four hours. Baste it with the cooking juices once or twice during that time, and if the pan dries out add a little more liquid. Tent the roast with foil if it seems to be getting too brown.