Recipes

Honeyed Roast Lamb with Spinach and Pine Nuts

  • Serves

    serves 4

JAVIER SALAS

(Cordero Asado a la Miel Relleno de Espinacas y Piñones) At Enrique Becerra in Seville, the lamb is sliced to order and heated with the sauce in a skillet.

Ingredients

  • 1 (3-lb.) piece young lamb shoulder with bones removed and reserved and meat butterflied and trimmed of sinew and fat
  • 2 lb. lamb bones
  • Salt
  • 2 ribs celery, trimmed and chopped
  • 2 medium carrots, peeled, trimmed, and chopped
  • 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
  • 1 leek, trimmed, washed, and chopped
  • 2 tbsp. flour
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 23 cup honey
  • 4 lb. spinach, trimmed, washed, and chopped
  • 14 cup pine nuts
  • 3 tbsp. olive oil

Instructions

Step 1

Preheat oven to 400°. Put all lamb bones into a heavy medium roasting pan, season to taste with salt, and roast until brown, 1 hour. Scatter celery, carrots, onions, and leeks in pan with bones and roast for 30 minutes more. Transfer pan to top of stove, sprinkle flour in bottom of pan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden, 1–2 minutes. Stir in wine, 5 cups water, and honey and bring to a boil, scraping browned bits stuck to bottom of pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until reduced by two-thirds, 1 1⁄2–2 hours. Discard bones, then strain sauce through a sieve into a medium saucepan. Skim off and discard fat. Adjust seasonings. Keep sauce warm over lowest heat.

Step 2

Meanwhile, cook spinach in a large pot of salted water over high heat until very soft, 2–3 minutes. Drain, squeezing out excess water, and set aside.

Step 3

Preheat oven to 350°. Lay lamb out flat on a wok surface perpendicular to you, skin side down. Place spinach down center of meat, season to taste with salt and scatter with pine nuts. Gather long sides of meat together o enclose filling and tuck short sides in at each end. Tie kitchen twine around width of meat at 2" intervals, then tie a piece of twine around length of meat to hold ends in place. Rub meat with oil and season to taste with salt. Then put into a medium roasting pan and roast until tender, 1-1 1⁄2 hours. Let lamb rest for 10 minutes, then remove twine and carve. Spoon sauce over lamb.

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