Slow cooked leg of lamb

In recognition of the upcoming Passover festival, we had informally decided that one of the dishes to be served would be a leg of lamb (yes, we're hosting the Seder this year). By chance, I was at the butcher's this week, my wife not feeling too well, so I asked about lamb and was directed to their freezer cabiner where there were legs of lamb, as pictured below on the left. This joint weighed about 1.3 kg uncooked and at 130 NIS/kg cost 169 NIS: that's about the price of an expensive cut of beef. I thought that I would cook it for Saturday lunch and get an idea of what to do ... and what not to do.

I left the leg to defrost overnight, which is just as well, as frozen it wouldn't fit in the slow cooker. This morning, the leg was slightly more supple ('bendable' would be a better adjective) and I managed to not only get the leg into the cooker but also into a relatively flat position. On top of the leg, I placed the barbecue mat and on this I placed diced onions, carrots, celery and parsley, as usual. Finally I added about 150 ml red wine and 200 ml chicken soup.

I was using my usual method of slow cooking beef, combined with this online recipe. As the recipe notes, A leg of lamb is naturally quite tough, since the muscle has had to work hard, so [it] benefits from being cooked low and slow in a slow cooker.

On the left is the cooked lamb after the removal of the mat; the leg seems to have shrunk. I managed to get the joint out of the pot and into a container, where I tried to slice the meat, unsuccessfully. There were more bones than I expected; I extracted these and managed to cut some pieces of meat. This didn't go too well, and some of the pieces had skin attached.

Eventually I managed to prepare enough meat for my wife and I. The meat was definitely tender but somewhat lacking in taste. The only diner who really enjoyed the dish was the dog who got several bones to feast upon.

So I have to conclude that this experiment didn't particularly succeed, and I doubt that I'll be repeating it. My son is going to cook a similar joint next week for the Passover meal and I hope that he has more success than I did. The meat is definitely edible but not stupendous.

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