Roasting Joints on Your Aga

Aga cooking is famed for those perfectly succulent, slow roasted meats, but so many recipes out there cater only for home chefs that use conventional ovens. Here, we’ve collated some tips to make the most out of your Aga whatever your chosen meat.

For more cooking tips, check out our demos from the fabulous Sarah Whittaker, renowned Aga cooking expert and demonstrator.

Words and recipes by Sarah Whittaker, with our thanks.

Roasting Your Meat

1. Take a joint of meat – leg of lamb, topside of beef, leg of pork, chicken etc. Wipe the joint with kitchen paper to dry. [Rub pork skin with salt for extra crispy crackling. Rub chicken skin with salt, pepper and tarragon, cut up an onion and a lemon and push into the cavity. Rub mustard onto a beef joint. Make cuts in a lamb joint and push slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary into the meat.] 

2. Line the roasting tin with Bake-O-Glide and put in the meat. Hang the tin from the third set of runners in the roasting oven and cook – 12 - 15 min per lb for beef, 20 min per lb for lamb and chicken, 25 min per lb for pork. 

3. OR cook in the roasting oven for 1/3 of the cooking time, then move the meat to the simmering oven, allowing the entire calculated cooking time (in addition to the 1/3 already cooked). 

4. OR cover the tin tightly with foil and put into the simmering oven (baking oven on slumber for Total Control Agas) for about two and a half to three times the calculated cooking time. Once cooked, remove the foil and move the tin to the roasting oven for the joint to brown. 5. When cooked, remove the meat and rest for 10 minutes to allow the juices to settle. 

MOST IMPORTANT – REST THE JOINT, WHATEVER IT IS, BEFORE CARVING!

The Gravy

Pour off all but 2 tbsp of the fat from the tin. Stir in 2 tbsp flour, then blend on a pint of stock – maybe adding a spoonful of wine – [and for lamb a teaspoonful of redcurrant jelly, for beef a teaspoonful of Dijon mustard, for chicken some tarragon]. Stir well then put the tin onto the floor of the roasting oven for 5 minutes. Stir and return to the oven for 5 more minutes and the gravy will be boiling and thickened, ready to stir and serve.