(or Lamb dressed as Venison)
This dish should properly be Gigot de Mouton en Chevreuil. but as with chicken (when was the last time you ate a hen?) all our sheep are now dressed as lamb and all our mutton is now called lamb.
Strangely in France both are for sale, the mutton considerably cheaper than the lamb.
This comes from a recipe of Elizabeth David’s from her very first cook book Mediterranean Food published in 1950 but of course the recipe goes way back further.

The French are as duplicitous as any of us and they revere game as they revere mushrooms.I looked the history of this dish up and found housewives saying that if you produced this you could boast of your husband being a great hunter and everyone would believe you. I’m sure there are similar recipes for turning pork into boar and hen into pheasant.

But it is not to pretend that it is venison that I still cook it, its that the marinading process does wonderful things to the meat, making it tender and flavoursome and yes, quite gamey, and rather like smoking salmon-to preserve it- it has produced an unexpected delicacy.
Try and get your hands on a well hung leg of lamb and don’t cook it too well,
a nice bit of pink in the middle makes the meat moist and tasty.

Gigot en Chevreuil
(will serve 6)

1 leg of Lamb

Marinade:
1 Carrot
1 large Onion
2 sticks Celery
2 tablespoons olive oil
150ml (¼ pt.) Red Wine
150ml (¼ pt.) Red Wine Vinegar
small bunch fresh Parsley
4 Cloves Garlic-crushed
Sprig of Thyme and Rosemary
1 Bay leaf
1 Teaspoon crushed Peppercorns
2 teaspoons crushed Juniper Berries

For the sauce you will need 1 ½ teaspoons redcurrant jelly.

Chop finely the carrot, onion and celery and cook together in the oil until lightly browned. Then add all the other marinade ingredients, bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes. Leave this get completely cool.

Take ever scrap of skin and fat from the outside of the lamb, have ready a container in which it fits nicely, pour over the cooled marinade and cover well.
The lamb should rest in this for 4 or 5 days, turning every day to make sure all of the meat is benefitting from the marinade.

To Cook.

Lift the meat out of the marinade and pat it dry with sime kitchen paper.
Strain the marinade, conserve the liquids and discard the vegetables and herbs.

Preheat the oven to 220 C, 425 F, Gas 7
Put a little oil in a roasting tin and put in the lamb in the hot oven to roast.
Keep the lamb at this temperature for 30 to 40 minutes until well seared on the outside and then lower the temperature to 175C, 350F, Gas 4 for another 30 minutes.
It should now be still med rare, if you want it well cooked cook at this temperature for another 20 to 30 minutes. In either case take it out and put it somewhere warm to rest for 30 minutes before carving.

Use the strained marinade to deglaze the pan (if it is not burnt) or just heat it with the red currant jelly and some salt and pepper.

Serve with some crisp roast potatoes, and some mashed (or better crushed) parsnips, celeriac, or carrot or a combination of all three.

This is a delicious and special way of cooking lamb.