Publications / The Kitchen and Garden / Building and Using Your Clay Oven (Now with 'Look in the Book'!)
Mike Rutland shows you how to make the ultimate architectural garden accessory - a clay oven.
Home made bread, freshly baked and still warm to serve at the BBQ; pizzas served at the kids' parties or even a slow roasted joint of lamb? All are possible with Mike's step-by-step instructions on building and using your clay oven!
The contents include the history of the clay oven, why make and use a clay oven, the choice of materials, preparing the site for work, making the base, making and maintaining the oven and recipes including breads, pizzas and roasted meats as well as a section covering dismantling and recycling the oven at the end of its life.
And as for that slow roasted lamb – well here’s the perfect recipe for you: take your joint, rub in some olive oil, stud the meat with a knife point, fill the voids made with the knife point with a piece of anchovy wrapped in a piece of rosemary and simply place it into the middle of the oven, shutting the door behind. Then simply leave it for around 3-4 hours.
The initial cooking will take place in the first half hour as the lamb "sizzles" in the heat, then, as the oven cools, the lamb will slow cook gently, the oil lubricating and the anchovies melting away into nothing more than a salty highlight. Take out the lamb, slice it thickly and serve with a good wedge of bread (cooked in the oven before the lamb, of course!) or leave it to cool and enjoy the cold cuts the next day. The lamb will not need much in the way of carving as it simply falls off the bone, making the shoulder the ideal clay oven roast as not only is it usually a pain to carve with the blade bone in the way, but it is also a hard working muscle with a good marbling of fat which will cook through and baste the meat in its own juices as it cooks slowly, helping to break down the muscle fibres to make a tender and succulent Sunday roast for those summer afternoons eating alfresco.
