Baking hay while the sun shines

Goodness but it's been a while since my last post - November last year.

And since then, it seems as if it's been raining constantly. Relentlessly.

So when I saw the watery sunlight peeking from among the clouds this last weekend I was perhaps in a slightly over-eager mood. Over eager to try out something spring-like and optimistic for Sunday lunch with friends.

Which is why I found myself swaddling a big leg of lamb in hay normally reserved for the rabbits.

The smell of hay takes me right back to stacking-up bales of hay on steep Devon fields on warm summer days when I was a kid, so when I saw the recipe in HFW's River Cottage Cookbook, and remembered that courtesy of the two pet rabbits we had plenty of hay, I thought why not?

Expensive hay and expensive leg

 The recipe is pretty basic. Simply take said leg of lamb (English, from Sainbury's); baste with a combination of butter, finely chopped garlic, rosemary, thyme and marjoram. Then put in a deep roasting dish lined with 6-7 cms of hay, put the same amount on top and cover with foil.


Then place in medium hot oven (220C) and bake for about 2 hours 15 minutes.

The result? 

Well, to be honest, not fantastic. As a general rule HFW is in my top tier of cookery writers. Those whose recipes are pretty foolproof: quantities are correct, instructions are clear and timings true. Aside from Delia (who I assume has a whole brigade of minions testing every recipe to destruction) I add Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater. Jamie Oliver is a little too keen on the slosh of this and a handful of that for my liking.

What we got after 2 and a bit hours plus resting time was something very pink and moist (ooh er!) which tasted as much of hay as lamb. Hardly surprising you may say - and for me personally that was no bad thing (though that was by no means a universal response. 

But the real downer was that every single slice was coated with individual strands of hay. Too many to easily get rid of and each one like a giant's pube in your mouth.

And absolutely nothing in the pan to make gravy (apart from hay, which doesn't really cut it in the jus department).  Again, the more attentive readers among you will be saying that's hardly surprising - hay is absorbent dummy! Which again is true. But Hugh says…

"Any juices from the pan can be poured off and used for gravy although I tend to prefer to serve this dish with boiled flageolet beans heated through in the juices and fat from the lamb."

Which led me to believe that I wasn't being a total half-wit to expect a cupful of something to go with the roast potatoes that also featured.

Saved by the trifle.

Luckily Mim had made an industrial-sized chocolate trifle using a Nigella recipe. The video of it is pretty cringe-making (while in some parallel universe she may hop on the bus and queue patiently in supermarket check out lines, in this one I think the recent trial made it pretty clear that other people take up those tasks for her), but it's easy to buy for, easy to make and, crucially, easy to like. So somewhat unsurprisingly this was a sure-fire winner with oldies and youngies alike.

Our guests were far too polite to comment on my unusual interpretation of roast leg of lamb, but once they had left, family feedback was short and brutal. I must never, ever, cook that again!

So HFW - please tell me what I did wrong? Or dare you admit that this was something you once did while very drunk and thought it would be a laugh for others to make the same mistake you did? 

While revenge is a dish best served cold, reheated memories always leave a nasty taste in the mouth.