Lamb Kleftiko is a classic Greek lamb recipe where lamb is cooked within a parchment parcel to seal in all of the delicious flavour and keep it moist. The lamb is first marinated in an incredible mix of herbs, lemons and spices and then slow cooked on top of a bed of vegetables. It gets a final flourish with crumbled feta and parsley. With a modest amount of prep time, this is the ultimate Sunday or weekend roast all in one tray! This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.
Lamb Kleftiko has a rich historical background and is believed to be named after the Klephts or Kleftes, a group of bandits who resisted Ottoman rule in Greece from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. In Greek, "kleftiko" translates to "stolen meat" and to survive, the Klephts would steal a lamb from a hillside flock and cook it for hours in a concealed hole in the ground. They used hot stones and glowing embers to cook the meat sealing the hole with soil to prevent any steam from escaping and revealing their location! And did you know that that is where the word Kleptomania comes from?
Tips For The BEST Lamb Kleftiko!
1- You can use any cut of lamb for kleftiko. Leg of lamb is commonly used as is lamb shoulder (or a whole lamb if you're feeding a large group). On the other end of the scale, you can also use lamb shanks for individual parcels and easy serving. I love using lamb shoulder the most because it is the most luscious cut. I also like it because lamb shoulder does not dry out like leg of lamb does and since you can't really open up the packet while cooking, I feel safer knowing that the lamb dry out as its the shoulder.
2- The spice marinade is SO delicious. I think you can tell how good the lamb will be when you just taste a bit of the marinade. If you have time, marinate the lamb overnight so that the flavours permeate right through. Otherwise you can cook it straight away or after a short time marinating.
3- Cut your vegetables, especially the potatoes chunky. The lamb cooks with the vegetables for four hours and while the tomato and capsicum is nice when it sort of melts into the sauce, you want your potatoes to keep their shape. My potatoes were quite large so I quartered them.
4- Use very large sheets of foil and parchment. I use the oversized parchment from Aldi (not sponsored). If you've got yourself in a bit of a state with the parchment (it happens), you can always use a stapler to staple the parchment shut. I've done it and it works!
5- If you prefer, you can make lamb kleftiko in a large oven proof cast iron pot. Just add a sheet of parchment between the lid and the pot to ensure that no steam escapes during cooking.
6 - I love serving this with a bowl of extra crumbled feta. It goes so well with the potatoes!
Kleftiko is one of my favourite Greek dishes along with Giouvetsi Slow Cooked Greek Lamb Shanks, the layered Pastitsio pasta bake, Easy Moussaka and I also like serving it with side dishes like Arakas Latheros (Greek Peas) or Koukia Lathera (Greek Broad Beans With Feta) (because you already have a block of feta out) because extra vegetables never goes astray. I often snack on leftover veggies if I am hungry between meals!
I also serve this with a Cypriot grain salad for a bit of freshness (I'll share that recipe soon too!). This winter we tend to have people over for lunch or dinner and this is the perfect meal for guests. There's a bit of theatre as you open up the foil and parchment and it is so delicious and comforting and everyone loves it. I am making this again for Mr NQN's birthday lunch coming up with friends.
Recently we went away for his birthday with Teddy and Milo. We arrived at our accommodation and were so happy when we looked out the window and saw the beach and the surf crashing just outside. The boys jumped up on the bed and we unpacked. Because it is a public beach there were lots of people walking past with their dogs and at first Teddy and Milo would bark as they walked close to the edge. It has a wooden fence about waist high although not a gate so dogs can run into the villa's garden area but that only happened once. The dog was with this one man who sat down on the fence. He sat there for a good 20 minutes just looking at the beach view and his dog ran in and out of our garden.
Then Mr NQN decided to take the dogs for a walk while I worked. I was sitting on the bed, pillows propped up behind me watching the view outside. And then the man on the fence turned around and started staring straight into the room at me. I felt a chill straight away. It was a sinister look and contained no polite curiosity, only menace. He was looking directly at me, right into my eyes.
I wasn't sure if Mr NQN had locked all of the doors and he was staring so intently and I didn't know what to do so I stared back. Then I grabbed my phone and decided that if he was going to be a total creep, I was going to record it. As soon as I lifted my phone he turned around and hid his face. After a few minutes he would turn back and stare and I would pick the phone up again and this repeated itself many times. I sent the pictures to Mr NQN and Monica. Mr NQN told me to close the curtains but I didn't want to. Not just because he was infringing on my enjoyment but with the curtains closed I wouldn't know if he crept into the garden area and then into our villa. I wanted to keep an eye on him.
This continued for half an hour until a group of 5 fishermen started setting up their chairs directly next to him. This seemed to have frightened him off and he left a few minutes before Mr NQN returned home with Teddy and Milo. Still, my serenity was disturbed and while Mr NQN dismissed it with a "You'll be fine" I didn't feel fine. When it came to Mr NQN using the sauna and jacuzzi at night, I locked the door in case that creep returned. We were relieved to see that all of the windows had automatic shutters that sealed the doors and windows at night too!
So tell me Dear Reader, what would you have done in that situation? Have you ever had something like that happen? Do you like lamb kleftiko?
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