Easter garlic lamb cooked in hay

Easter Sunday lunch: roast lamb studded with garlic cooked in hay with all the trimmings

My parents came to stay over Easter which I thought was a good opportunity to cook a decent sized roast (I'm usually cooking for one so it isn't worth it). I don't cook lamb very often either as my boyfriend doesn't like it, but roast lamb is a traditional Easter dish and something that I love.

I saw a recipe in the Mail on Sunday's You magazine for lamb cooked on a bed of hay, which I thought looked intriguing- and I do have access to plenty of hay. Say hello to Moo who kindly let me have some of her eating hay for this recipe.

The recipe is quite simple and doesn't use many ingredients. I had a 2.1kg leg of lamb; I made small cuts all over it with a sharp knife and sliced five cloves of garlic, then inserted the slices into each cut. Drizzle with oil and season.

Then surround the lamb with hay but don't cover it. Cover the whole thing tightly with foil.

The hay gives off a little bit of smoke but it didn't burn, and two and a half hours later we had this:

After lifting out the lamb to carve I removed as much of the hay as possible.

I'm not sure how much of a flavour the hay gave to the lamb, but it was beautifully cooked and you could taste the garlic. My mum was in charge of the roast potatoes and gravy and we had a great Easter Sunday lunch.