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Roast leg of lamb over boulangère potatoes and onions.

Lamb

Gigot d’Agneau à la Boulangère

By JustRecipes Editorial Team

Potatoes bake in lamb stock and roasting juices beneath a garlic-and-rosemary leg of lamb, becoming soft and savoury under a golden top. Sliced onions bring sweetness between the layers. It is the pleasure of a Sunday roast gathered into one dish, with the potatoes sharing the flavour of the meat. Carve the lamb after its rest, then serve generous spoonfuls of potatoes with the concentrated pan juices.

Prep
Not stated
Cook
Not stated
Published total
2 hr 5 min
Serves4
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Ingredients

Ingredients

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 220°C. Pat lamb dry and rub with olive oil, half the salt and the black pepper. Slice garlic and strip rosemary leaves.
  2. Cut small slits over the lamb and insert garlic slices and rosemary. Set aside while preparing the potatoes.
  3. Dot butter over a roasting pan. Layer half the potatoes, all the onions and remaining potatoes, seasoning with remaining salt. Pour in stock partway up the layers, without covering them.
  4. Set lamb on the potatoes. Roast 20 minutes, reduce oven to 180°C and roast 60–70 minutes, until lamb is cooked to your liking and potatoes are tender. Baste dry potatoes with pan stock.
  5. Lift lamb to a board, loosely cover and rest 15 minutes. Return potatoes to the oven for 10 minutes to colour and reduce the stock. Carve and serve with the potatoes and onions.

Equipment

Roasting pan; Oven; Knife; Cutting board; Foil; Meat thermometer

Notes

  • Potato layers: slice evenly and thinly, and use well-flavoured lamb stock. Pour it only partway up the layers. If exposed potatoes look dry during roasting, baste with stock from the pan.
  • Doneness: the source calls for a medium bone-in leg but gives no weight. Treat the timings as a guide and use a meat thermometer to judge your chosen endpoint.
  • Resting: lift the lamb to a board and cover loosely for fifteen minutes. Use that interval for the ten-minute potato finish, allowing their top to brown and the liquid to reduce.
  • Carving and serving: cut across the grain and work close to the bone. Spoon the reduced juices over meat and potatoes. Green beans, peas, spinach or a bitter-leaf salad give a fresh accompaniment.
  • Alternatives: swap fresh thyme for rosemary if preferred. Olive oil can replace the butter; the potato layers will be less rich.
  • Leftovers: cool promptly, then refrigerate in a sealed container for up to three days. Reheat in a 180°C oven until piping hot, with a splash of lamb stock if the potatoes need loosening. Freeze portions for up to two months and thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating.

Photos

1 photo
Gigot d’Agneau Boulangère (Leg of Lamb with Boulangère Potatoes)ServingCarved lamb with boulangère potatoes

Gigot d’Agneau à la Boulangère

Recipe photos

About this dish

A Sunday joint carried to the baker, with potatoes tucked around it, is more than a convenient explanation for the name boulangère. Joseph Favre describes that practice in his Dictionnaire universel de cuisine pratique. It connects this roast to the custom of having a family meal cooked at the bakery. Escoffier also records the potato-and-onion preparation in his 1903 Guide Culinaire, using shoulder of mutton.

Here, JustRecipes places a bone-in leg directly over thinly layered potatoes and onions. Garlic and rosemary inserted into the lamb perfume it as it roasts. Stock moistens the lower potato layers, while the juices from above bring the flavour of the joint into its accompaniment.

The finishing sequence makes the most of both. Fifteen minutes of rest gives the lamb a pause before carving; the potatoes return to the oven during that interval, taking on more colour as the stock concentrates. The pan supplies the sauce as well as the side dish.

Recipe and cooking notes adapted from JustRecipes.