Earth Oven Cooking: Slow-Cooked Lamb for Easter

Here in central Portugal, it's common to eat lamb at Easter-time. What's less common is to cook your lamb in a fiery pit, which is what we did with friends this Easter, a few weekends ago.

This is a traditional practice in many countries, especially New Zealand (Hāngi) as well as other Pacific islands and parts of South America. You slow cook a dish by building a fire, heating up stones, and then burying them, with your food on top, in a pit, which you then leave for four or five hours to slowly cook. The earth seals in the heat, just like an oven, without being intense, so you can forget about it without worrying about burning your lunch! We've also seen something similar on the Azores, where pots filled with Portuguese cozido are buried in the earth and slowly cooked using the geothermal heat from a volcano!

We had bought a lamb leg and some stewing cuts from a friend who keeps a few sheep in a village nearby, and once the fire had been going for a while and the stones were up to temperature, we put them in a small pit that we'd dug.

We made the most of the four-hour cooking time to take a hike up in the hills and to swim in the river. By the time we completed our 10km hike in the sun, we were more than ready for a glass of wine and some delicious roast lamb, slow-cooked and freshly dug up.