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Nigerian-style roast lamb

• Jess Edun
• , Jo Edun

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Serves 6

Easy

Prep: 30 mins

Cook: 2 hrs - 3 hrs

plus marinating

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Slow-cooked, juicy lamb that melts in your mouth. Best served piping hot with jollof rice or roast potatoes, or both!

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Try Nigerian-style roast lamb, then discover beef suya, miyan taushe (Nigerian pumpkin stew), Nigerian efo riro or ewa agoyin. Also try Nigerian jollof rice and Nigerian egusi soup.

This dish has a special place in our hearts as we created it while cooking with our grandma in her Hackney kitchen. Lamb was her favourite meat and this recipe honours Easters spent with the whole family feeding the 5,000! Our grandma was an incredible woman, a pillar of her community, and she was all about bold, rich flavours – this dish embodies just that. Lamb is commonly eaten in Nigeria as a suya dish, the number one street-food snack. It’s the spice that makes it suya, the meat can vary from beef to chicken and lamb, but the suya spice, originating from the north of Nigeria, is the real star. Lamb is an Easter British staple and this dish combines the best of both worlds.

Jess and Jo Edun started their food careers with a pub residency at The Old Nun’s Head in Peckham and, in 2022, opened The Flygerians restaurant in Peckham Palms, a black female-led space supporting start-up businesses. They made it into Vogue in a round-up of ‘the best black-owned restaurants in London’ and have since attracted plenty of media attention and made several TV appearances, including Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. Listen to them on the podcast, available on Spotify, Acast and Apple.

Nigerian-style roast lamb recipe

Ingredients

Nutrition

• 1 lemon

  halved

• 1 large lamb leg

• 50ml olive oil

• 5 tbsp paprika

• 4 tbsp curry powder (hot, medium or mild, depending on your preference)

• 2 tbsp ground cumin

• 3 tbsp ground cinnamon

• 4 tbsp Jumbo Chicken Stock powder (adjust to taste)

• 5 tbsp garlic powder

• 1 tbsp ground turmeric

• 1 large Spanish onion or 3 medium white onions

  finely diced

• 400g tin of plum tomatoes

• 1-2 Scotch Bonnet chillies

• 4 large garlic cloves

• 4 large red Romano peppers

  chopped

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

• 2½cm piece of ginger

  grated

• 2 tbsp tomato purée

• 4 tbsp honey (we like it sweet but you can adjust this to your preference)

• finely chopped parsley

  to serve

Nutrition: per serving

• kcal824
• fat49g
• saturates14g
• carbs27g
• sugars20g
• fibre13g
• protein61g
• salt6.2g

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Method

• step 1

  Rub the lemon over the lamb and trim any excess fat. Put it in a roasting tin then pierce holes all over with a sharp knife or skewer to help the marinade seep throughout the meat.

• step 2

  In a bowl, mix the olive oil with 4 tbsp of the paprika, half the curry powder, all the cumin and cinnamon, stock powder, garlic powder, turmeric and salt to taste. Mix well and use it to coat the lamb, massaging it into the meat until completely covered. Cover and leave in the fridge for 4-24 hrs – the longer it marinates the deeper the flavour.

• step 3

  Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Cover the lamb with foil then roast in the oven. We like ours pink so would take it out after 2 hrs and leave it to rest, but if you like it well done let it cook for another 30 mins-1 hr.

• step 4

  While the lamb is cooking, make the sauce. Put half the onions, all the tomatoes and chillies, half the garlic and all the peppers in a blender or food processor, and blitz until almost smooth – we like to keep a bit of texture.

• step 5

  In a large pan or dutch oven heat the vegetable oil over a medium heat. Cook the remaining onions and garlic until golden, translucent and fragrant. Stir in the ginger and cook for 1-2 mins. Turn down the heat to low, then add the tomato purée and stir until it darkens. Pour in the blended mixture and season with the remaining spices you portioned out earlier. Cook for 30 mins over a low heat and then add the honey – the sauce should have thickened slightly when it’s ready.

• step 6

  To serve, put the lamb in the centre of a platter, cover with the sweet pepper sauce and garnish with parsley.

More west African-style recipes.

Authors

Jess Edun

Jo Edun

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