One Flame Feast - Lamb Boulangere

Taking SC to one of his potential university choices at the weekend made me think about communal student life again.

Musing afterwards on what would make a great student Sunday meal Lamb Boulangere came to mind. In the current cliche it ticks all the boxes (except vegetarian, sorry): almost no fail; can be made to feed six or eight with ease; just one pot to wash up; can be left to its own devices (if you have good security in the flat).

Some cooks suggest pre-heating the meat at high temperature, but the original idea was that in the days before working class homes in France had ovens they benefited from their neighbourhood baker's, after it had done the Sunday bread, the dish cooking slowly in the cooling oven.

There are few ingredients: for six people 1kg to 1.5kg of potatoes, peeled and cut into slices about 3mm thick; 0.5kg to 1kg of onions cut into very thin slices; between 3 and 12 cloves of garlic depending on your taste, thickly sliced; a boned shoulder of lamb (boned makes carving thus life easy) weighing 1.5kg to 2kg; water and salt and pepper (you can use a chicken stock cube to make the liquid more interesting, but it's not needed as the lamb cooking slowly oozes its juices and fat into the veg and the water).

Wipe a roasting tin with butter or oil, then layer up the spuds and onions, with garlic slices and seasoning every now and then. Finish with a layer of potato slices. Pour in boiling water to about 10mm below the top of the veg, then lay the meat on top, cover the lot with foil, and put in an oven at 140C and leave it for at least four hours, preferably six, and if it fits your life better, up to eight will do no harm

Twenty minutes before you want to eat take it out of the oven, remove the meat to rest (rolled in the foil to keep warm, with a tea-towel or two on top for extra insulation). Turn the oven up much hotter, 220 to 230C, and let the top layer of spuds crisp up - this is the only time it needs an eye on it, as soon as the edges start to go from golden brown to black, it's ready.

The spuds and onions are dished up with plenty of juice, and chunks of meat (not slices) placed on top. If you get the last 20 minutes right you'll have a few crispy bits as a pleasant contrast to the melting mass.

Though it is perfect in itself, some peas, carrots or even baked beans would bulk it out a bit if youthful appetites demanded. With 1.5kg of spuds, 1kg of onions, and a whole garlic bulb the veg component would be about £2.80. A 1.5kg rolled shoulder of lamb is about £12.50. So for six people for a Sunday lunch it would be £2.55 each. Go wild with a whole bag of frozen peas and you're still under £3 per head, cheaper than an espresso and a brownie at Costa Fortune.