Roast Leg Of Lamb French-Style (Gigot D'agneau A La Francaise)

Ingredients

• 1 leg of lamb
• 8 to 9 pounds
• 1 tablespoon corn
• peanut or vegetable oil
• Salt to taste
• if desired
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 large cloves garlic
• each cut into 16 slivers
• 2 onions
• about 1/2 pound
• cut crosswise in half
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 carrot
• about 1/4 pound
• trimmed
• scraped and cut crosswise into 6 pieces
• 1 cup water
• Flageolet beans in cream (see recipe)
• optional

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. It is recommended that you have the butcher remove and set aside the hipbone of the lamb.
3. This is the upper bone that is attached to the main (straight) leg bone.
4. This can also be done in the home kitchen, using a thin, sharp boning knife, neatly cutting all around the meat attached to the hipbone and severing the hipbone from the main bone.
5. Cut off and discard the skin, leaving a light layer of fat.
6. Rub the meat all over with the oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and the thyme.
7. Make 16 gashes in the flesh of the leg and insert the garlic slivers.
8. Place the leg, the thickest side down, in a roasting pan and scatter around it the hipbone, onion halves (cut side down), bay leaves and carrot pieces.
9. Place in the oven and bake one hour.
10. Remove the lamb and pour off the fat from the pan.
11. Return the lamb to the pan, the thickest side up.
12. Pour the water into the pan and continue baking 30 minutes for medium-rare lamb (135 degrees internal temperature).
13. If you wish the lamb well done, continue cooking 30 minutes or longer.
14. In any event, remove the lamb from the oven, discarding the hipbone and vegetables, cover with foil and let it stand for 20 minutes before carving.
15. Serve, if desired, with flageolet beans in cream.