Last August I barbecued some joints of lamb on my barbacue.
Cooking joints of meat on a barbecue is not a simple process, you can have undercooked or raw on the inside and burnt and charred on the outside.
I used this process to cook two different kinds of lamb joint. I had a mini lamb shoulder and a boned half leg of lamb.
The first thing I did was to prepare the lamb by seasoning with salt and pepper and then marinating with rosemary, and some olive oil.
Though you can cook these kinds of joint directly on the barbecue, it can be quite challenging to ensure that the lamb is properly cooked, through, without burning or overcooking the outside. Part of the issue is that it is difficult to control the temperature of the barbecue unlike a normal grill. The key process is to recreate some aspects of a “normal” oven as opposed to the usual way of using a barbecue as a grill.
After the coals have reached cooking temperature, move them to the sides of the barbecue, so that when the lamb is placed on the grill, it is not over direct heat.
The lamb was then covered, I used a wok lid, but this is where a kettle barbecue comes into its own.
The end result was a properly cooked lamb, which was moist and succulent and full of flavour.