Roast Suckling Baby lamb / Lechazo Asado

 Roast Suckling Baby lamb

Lechazo Asado

Juicy suckling baby lamb with crispy skin, the quintessential Castillian dish in traditional Spanish cuisine. 'Lechazo asado' or baby lamb is a lamb not yet weaned, baked in a wooded fire oven, cooked in clay pots, and served hot with a crispy skin. 

There are renowned Asadores in Castilla, Leon, and Asturias. 

At home, we love suckling baby lamb as it's been cooked for years and years at my husband's family home on special occasions. The fact that now we can order a beautiful piece of baby lamb from the comfort of our home in London is a plus for us!

Here I show you my recipe, which is inspired in my mother in low own recipe, who showed me how to make it, although I added 2 ingredients, garlic, and rosemary which she never used, yet I love!

What do you need?

✅ Ceramic oven tray

✅ Pester and mortar

✅ 1 brush

✅ 1 basting spoon

Ingredients for 4 people

✔ 2 legs of suckling lamb of about 5 kg 

✔ Salt 

✔ Pork Lard

✔ A bunch of fresh Rosemary

✔ 2 Garlic cloves

✔ Water

Method

• Set your oven at 210ºC.

• We start seasoning with salt the lamb and massaging the whole lamb with lard.

• Clean and roughly cut the rosemary leaves, then crush the garlic with the pester and mortar, add some microwave dissolved lard, and mix. Use a brush to marinate the lamb with this garlicky flavor.

• Add some water to the oven tray enough to cover the bottom. Add the 2 legs and bake in the oven for about an hour. Turn around the 2 pieces during the cooking time. 

• We lower the temperature to 180ºC and continue to cook for about 45 minutes so the meat gets tenderly baked.

• During all this time we sauce the legs with a basting spoon from time to time with its own juices, which we will collect from the bottom of the tray so that it is very tender and juicy.

• Once it is done we can serve the piece with a lovely fresh tomatoes salad. At home we love it accompanied with oven-baked potatoes too. So to do this I cook in another oven tray some sliced and marinated potatoes with the garlic, rosemary and lard mixture all over the sliced potatoes and they will cook in the oven at the same time for about 45 minutes, when I turn down the temperature of the oven at 180ºC and they will bake until golden brown.