Stuffed lamb leg baked in dough

By the way, you can prepare this dish in advance to avoid too much cooking on the festive evening. Simply do all the preparations the day before and store them in the refrigerator. Just before the guests arrive, put the dish in the oven. It's a very festive dish! First, let's prepare the wrapper for our roast. Sift the flour into a bowl and add softened butter, eggs, a pinch of ground nutmeg, a little salt (about 0.3 tsp), and water. Knead the dough until it is smooth, shape it into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Next, let's work on the lamb leg. Carefully remove the internal bones, while trying to keep the outer part intact as much as possible.

This is approximately how the lamb leg should look (this is not an ideal picture) after you remove the bones from it. Then, using an axe, you should chop the bones into several pieces - it's better to ask a man to do this.

Now let's talk about the filling. First, crumble the feta cheese with a fork - it's very easy. Then, add garlic - either finely chopped or crushed through a press - the choice is yours, as well as finely chopped parsley and a few dry-roasted and cooled sunflower seeds. Simply mix all the ingredients well. Note: you can replace sunflower seeds with a handful of walnuts or lightly toasted sesame seeds if desired. It will still be very delicious.

Fill the lamb leg with this raw mixture, making sure to pack it tightly as the filling is quite loose. Then, sew the leg with a strong thread, preferably a culinary one.

After stuffing the leg, rub it with salt and ground black pepper. Be careful with the amount of salt, as the feta cheese inside is already quite salty. Let the leg marinate with the spices for a while.

During this time, preheat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius. Place a baking dish with vegetable oil in the oven and let it heat up. Then, place the prepared leg in the baking dish. Bake it for approximately 1.5 hours until it has a beautiful golden crust. You can even turn the leg a couple of times during baking for even browning. After that, remove it from the oven and let it cool on a rack, as we'll need to wrap it in cold pastry later. To prevent the pastry from melting, the meat should not be hot.

While the meat is roasting in the oven, let's prepare the sauce. Peel, wash, and cut the vegetables - onion and carrot - into small pieces.

In a frying pan with preheated vegetable oil, fry the chopped bones. Once they are well fried, add about a glass of water and simmer until the water evaporates. Then add another glass of water and the chopped vegetables, sprinkle with a mixture of Provencal herbs, pour in the wine and add a little salt. Simmer all together over low heat for another 10-15 minutes, until the liquid is reduced by about half. Strain the resulting mixture through a sieve - we no longer need the vegetables and bones. But we will need the strained liquid to make the sauce. For this, melt butter in the same frying pan, add flour and fry it slightly. Gradually add the collected liquid, stirring constantly with a whisk to avoid lumps. If the sauce becomes very thick, you can add some plain water to achieve the desired thickness of the sauce. Taste for salt, you may need to add more.

During this time, the fried leg will cool down, so you can start wrapping it in dough. First, you need to find and remove all the threads. Sprinkle the working surface with flour. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 0.5 centimeters. Place the lamb leg on the dough and wrap it like a parcel.

Mix the egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of milk. Spread this mixture evenly along the seams of the dough and then over the entire surface of the dough. Roll out the remaining dough again, cut out some decorative shapes (such as crescents), place them on top, and brush with the same mixture. For added beauty, you can also create a lattice pattern by making shallow incisions with a sharp knife. Place in a preheated oven at 225 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes. To prevent the surface of the dough from burning, you can cover it with foil (monitor the baking process as it depends on your oven). Serve the lamb leg hot, sliced into portioned pieces, with the prepared vegetable sauce and fresh salad. But if it cools down, simply put it in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, and it can be served again.