Ellie King's amazing barbecued leg of lamb

This Sunday, to celebrate Steph's birthday, we headed over to Ellie and Mike's house for a special lunch.

The weather was a bit blustery so despite the food all being cooked on the BBQ we ate indoors around the table.

Ellie was following a recipe from 'At Home With Jamie', I think you can find it here if you don't want to buy the whole book although a cursory glance suggests it's a worth a look, on the Telegraph web page look for the recipe entitled 'Best barbecued meat and homemade barbecue sauce'.

A leg of lamb was marinaded in all sorts of herbs, spices and lubrication's and roasted in the oven until the meat was still pink in the middle. The fat and juices from the meat and the marinade had coagulated into an amazing glaze, this glaze was key for the next stage.



Once the BBQ was at cooking temperature onions, with some butter and rosemary in the middle, and sweet potatoes, dusted with chili and salt, were wrapped in foil and put amongst the embers whilst the leg of lamb was put on the bars above the coals.



The meat was brushed with the remainder of the glaze and turned every few minutes so it could develop a nice sticky crust. Once the meat was nearly ready some foil parcels containing greens with lemon and olive oil were put above the coals to steam for a few minutes.

It was some of the best lamb I have eaten in a long time, the BBQ had given it an amazing smokey flavour, within their skins the sweet potato had collapsed down to almost a mash like consistency perfect for sopping up the juices and the green veggies were fresh and zingy tasting.



As if all this wasn't enough we then had homemade rice pudding with big dollups of jam, I was in hog heaven!

Happy Birthday Steph!