BBQ Greek Lamb Kleftiko | Easy Mediterranean Lamb Recipe!

This BBQ Greek Lamb Kleftiko is one of those recipes that looks impressive but it couldn't be easier. Slow-cooked leg of lamb, tender potatoes, sweet peppers, juicy tomatoes, fragrant oregano and creamy feta cheese. Everything cooks together until the lamb just melts in your mouth. So we're back again with another Greek classic, the lamb kleftiko. I'm pretty sure if you've been to Greece, you will have tried this much-loved dish. And if you haven't, you're missing out. But don't fret, because we're going to be cooking it today. You'll see exactly how it's made. It is super simple, and to be fair, the barbecue or your oven is going to do most of the work. So let's get started. And we're going to start with our potatoes. Here I've got four waxy potatoes. What we need to just do with these is peel them up. Halve them and then cut them into wedges and then you need yourself an oven proof or barbecue proof in our case oven tray there and you just want to chuck those straight into that. Basically going to make a nice base layer of veggies and potatoes and what have you and we're going to lay that lamb on top of it. Again, obviously, alter the quantities, guys, if you want more potatoes. There's no rules. However many you're feeding, obviously, more or less. Up to you. Next up, we're going to have two red peppers. And again, with these, we just want to slice down the side here. Just go all the way around. And we're going to basically, with these, just cut them into sort of fairly big slices. Cut them to whatever size you like. I like them to sort of be something like that. And then, again, into our baking tray. That's it. Next up I've got some lovely vine tomatoes here. They're not too big so I'm using about five of those. First thing I want to do is I want to keep the vine because we're going to put that in there because there is a lot of flavour in there and I don't want to waste it. We'll take it out obviously nearer the end and then with the tomatoes all I'm going to do is quarter them up. That's right and you've guessed it that's going straight into our pan too. Okay and I'm just going to give this all a little bit of a mix around. I'm just going to wipe my board off and let's bring that up. Next the lamb. Now I'm using a bone-in leg of lamb. It's a two kilo leg of lamb. I picked this up from Sainsbury's actually and it was on offer, a slight offer I got with my nectar card. Lovely piece of lamb and that's just going to be plonked straight on the top. Next to that, we're going to add a whole bulb of garlic and all I'm going to do with this is just cut it straight down the middle, skins and all. Again, we're going to squeeze those out a bit later. That will nestle in there nicely. For the lamb, I'm going to go over with a little bit of olive oil, quite a bit of olive oil to be fair. Good few glugs. I want to make sure it's nicely covered and then a little bit around the edges too. Next, I want some water, so that's two to 300 milliliters. You can always top this up mid-cook, just keep an eye on it. And there, I think it was about 250 milliliters I added in there. Squeeze of lemon, so I'm going to use the juice of a whole lemon. And again, that's going to go over the top of our lovely leg of lamb there. All of that in, all of that goodness. Lemons always evoke memories of Greece for me, Greece or Italy. Just love lemon, especially in a gin and tonic. There we go. And then some salt and pepper. I just want to season this up. A good few sprinklings of the salt and pepper. There's a lot of potatoes and a lot of veg in there, so it can take plenty of the salt. A good few turns of your pepper mill and as some of you may know I love my pepper so I always go a little bit heavy with the old pepper so I don't know that's probably about 20 or 25 turns there and last but not least of course oregano. So I've got some dried oregano just going to sprinkle it all over the top of the lamb. Another staple the old oregano isn't it. I'm going to put some around the edges as well. I like plenty of this stuff also I'll be honest with you. That's it. All we is cover this with some foil so you want something obviously that's gonna be big enough to cover whatever pan you're doing it in and you want to try and seal this as tight as you possibly can so just make sure as you go around as a matter of fact i'm going to tuck that in either side of that handle just so there's no escapees get it in there as well that's it and that is pretty tight to me So that is now ready to be cooked. Obviously I'm cooking it on the barbecue but if you're not cooking it on your barbecue this works perfectly in the oven. Just preheat your oven to 180c fan. Obviously I've got the barbecue preheated to 180c and today we're going to be cooking it indirectly so we just need to finish setting that up before we put the lamb in. So in here I'm using the Big Green Egg Lumpwood Charcoal. This is the oak and hickory mix. I find it's got enough smokiness but if you want more smokiness and you're doing it on your barbecue you could always add some wood chips to that as well and I've gone for bigger pieces because obviously this is going to be a slower cook. So while I'm happy with that let's add in our plate setter or this is what the Big Green Egg call a plate setter. It basically just deflects the heat effectively so we're not cooking directly over the flames. And then to that, we just want to add our grill grates on there as well. So effectively, now we've got our oven. So I'm just going to plonk our lamb kleftiko in there, shut the lid, and that's going to cook for about two hours, 45 to three hours, about the halfway mark. I will take that foil up, just have a little check on it, make sure it hasn't dried out. And if it has, just add a little bit more water to it. Again, exactly the same timings and exactly the same process if you are doing it in your oven. After the three hours, and once I'm happy with it, then I'm going to take that foil off and add the finishing touches to the lamb kleftiko. Okay, so we are an hour and 45 into this cook. I just want to, as I said before, I just want to check to see how this is looking. Oh yeah, look at that. That is lovely. It's all falling away, starting to fall away from the bone, which is what we want. We've got plenty of liquid still in here, so I don't actually need to top that up right now. So we are looking good. I'm going to cover that back up and let it cook. Basically, for the next hour, we've got about an hour left on that, I reckon, until we're at temperature. I'm looking for an internal temperature on this of 80 degrees C. Let's close that back up. Okay, so we are at time, and I've just done a quick temperature check on it, and we're just below the 80 C mark, which is great because this needs to go back in uncovered this time. So we're going to take that off. Get it nice and hot. I'm going to chuck that over there. What I want to do is just remove... that lamb from there for a second because we need to get a couple of bits out before we add back to the pan so let's drain that off there get it on there and i'll then cover that back up with the foil and what we want to do is get that garlic and give it a good squeeze in here actually before i do that i will take out and remove those tomato stalks there they have done their job i know there was another one somewhere where has it gone there you go is that it That's the fella there. I think that's both. Yep. Okay, so get your garlic here. I'm just using a pair of tongs. I want to give that all a good squeeze out. You want all of those garlic cloves to release from there. All that lovely flavour that they are holding. I think that's it. That's one. And then our second one here. I think they've already come out of there. Yep, they have. Perfect. Just get rid of that. and you can see here another shell let me just get rid of those there you go i think that's it we're done and you can see here the potatoes that they're still holding their own they are really soft and tender i've got one that's broken up a little bit there but they are pretty much as a whole so that is great so we're going to add back in that lamb and again just lay it on the top there And then last but not least we're going to sprinkle over some cubes of feta, so just a standard block of feta. I'm just going to dart them here and there all the way around the edge. That is one whole block I'm going to use. We like feta, obviously adjust the quantities depending on what you like. And if you want to crumble it, crumble it. No rules here, do what you like. That is us done there. That is now ready to go back into the barbecue for a final 15 to 20 minutes. What we're looking for now is a nice bit of colour on that lamb but also to get a little bit of colour on that feta cheese. Again exactly the same temperature, that 180 again, then we'll be ready to bring it out and it's got to rest for a good 30 minutes. Sorry, a bit more of a wait. Okay, so we are done. It had its final 15 to 20 minutes on the barbecue, as you saw, uncovered. I then pulled it out, recovered it, and I've let it sit here, I'll be honest, about 20 minutes, because I can't wait any longer. 20, 25 minutes, I just want to tuck in. So we're going to take that foil off. Obviously, I've had it rested with the foil on, and it is still nice and hot, but it's allowed that meat to rest perfectly, so it should be really nice and tender. I just want to finish it off with a couple of final finishing touches of course. course and one is a nice squeeze of lemon over the top and of course some more oregano love my oregano and it just reminds me of holidays in Greece for sure okay so let's give this a try we need to get that lamb out we're gonna cut piece off there it feels nice and tender just let that drain back in there a little bit let me just actually get a better bit of purchase on there and let's just chop a bit of this off and let's see how tender it is. look at that, just falling off there pretty much. I don't want it falling off the bone, but I do want it nice and tender and that feels like butter. So I've been very well controlled there. Only a few bits of the lamb. It is our dinner tonight. If you want this cooked. a little bit more rare just reduce the time absolutely fine it's just my daughter likes it like this and obviously we're all eating it so that's the way i do it want to please everyone i'm a people pleaser and i'm going to try one of those potatoes as well let's give that a whirl and of course a little bit of the feta and the lovely liquor just pour that over the top of your lamb i should have got A knife, but I'll have to use this one. Do you know what? That's a perfect size piece right there. I'm going to try it with a little bit of the red pepper. Here we go. Absolutely sensational. I'm not just saying that because I cooked it. It really is delicious. I mean, that lamb is an excellent piece of lamb. Taking on all those flavors, obviously cooking it in the water and tomatoes and everything else just delivers loads of flavor. sorry we've got some wildlife here. Let's try one of these potatoes. Still holding their shape. Perfectly cooked, for me anyway, I've got to have another little piece of that lamb and this time with a little bit of the feta and the red pepper. Stunning. Look, the meat, you can see that, look at that, just pulls apart, it is perfectly cooked, lovely and tender. Oh yeah, last bit, don't tell anyone. That's it from me for today. I hope you've enjoyed this one. It's a really easy dish to do. As I said at the beginning of this video, the barbecue or your oven is doing all the grunt of the work. It's a one pan dish. And it really is an impressive meal to serve. If you put that in front of your family or friends, they will be impressed for sure. I really appreciate you watching. And if you're new to the channel and you like the content, please don't forget to hit the subscribe button. Please also like, share, comment. And if you've got a hype button, I'd really appreciate one of those. I'll put all of the details of today's lamb kleftiko down below in the description as always. And all that's left for me to say is until next time, it's cooking good.