7 hour leg of lamb with Cot (Malbec)

When you’re roasting lamb you’re almost spoilt for choice. Almost any red you enjoy will go with this most wine-friendly of dishes but my pick of Thierry Puzelat’s quirky KO In Cot we Trust (2005) proved a winner

Both wine and lamb were bargains - the lamb snapped up by my husband at our local branch of Somerfield for just £9.49 (you’d be lucky if you got a couple of lamb shanks for that these days), the wine (originally £12.99) on a 25% off promotion in Waitrose earlier this year, though I’m not sure whether they still stock it*

We simply made a few cuts in the lamb and inserted slivers of garlic and a few rosemary leaves, smothered it with olive oil and put it in the hot oven of the AGA until it got going (about 20 minutes) then transferred it to the low oven and left it for the best part of the afternoon - about 7 1/2 hours in total. A sliced onion and a glass of red wine (and one of water) got added along the way. The result was wonderfully savoury, far more complex than one has any right to expect from supermarket meat and a perfect match for this luxuriant off-the-wall ‘natural’ wine with its dark, damsony fruit.

There’s an interesting article about Puzelat here if you want to know more.

* Green and Blue in London sells it for £14.40. Their recommended matches are venison, hare, game pie or sweetbreads.