Don't Follow Orders Blindly...

Pictured, tonight's repast of lamb, potatoes, and in my case, some token green stuff, served with a highly modified gravy, which started life as an M&S off-the-shelf jobby. Gravy, potatoes, broccoli, all good, although I forgot to put some of the fresh mint sauce that Jane had made onto my plate. Bugger. The weird thing about the meat, however, is that it was packaged as 'Butterflied Leg of Lamb', whatever that is supposed to mean. What it actually was, was a deboned fragment of [possibly - allegedly] leg of lamb, presented as a rather amorphous lump of flesh. The cooking time time specified on the packaging was around thirty to forty minutes at 200C, which to anyone with any experience of cooking such a large [700g] lump of meat, would obviously be seen as to be stupidly underestimated.

I cooked this - with the usual trivet of garlic, rosemary twigs and lemon wedges and seasoned with oregano, black pepper, salt and lots of olive oil - for a good hour-plus, starting it at 240C for good measure. As you can see, the meat turned out just off-pink, and this after a good half-hour rest, whilst the spuds and gravy did their thing. If I'd followed the instructions offered, I'd have served up pretty-much raw meat. I'm not that much of a carnivore for that to be palatable to me. It strikes me that following the instincts one develops from decades of cooking stuff is the only safety valve that protects one from the idiocy of the corporates who promulgate frankly stupid ideas when it comes to cooking basic foodstuffs. Oh, and don't fall for 'Butterflied Leg of Lamb' - it's a rubbish idea: stick with bone-in shoulder of lamb every time, slow-cooked with garlic, rosemary, herbs and white wine: recipe, blog posts passim. Spuds fab as usual...