Tiella di Agnello e Verdure alla Barese

Ingredients

• 800 g lamb shoulder, bone-in, cut into large pieces
• 600 g waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced 5 mm thick
• 300 g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 medium white onions, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 tsp dried wild oregano
• 80 ml extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling between layers
• 60 ml water
• 1 tsp fine sea salt, used in stages, one seasoning per layer
• to taste black pepper, used in stages

Method

1. 1
   Heat the oven to 180 °C. Select a deep terracotta tiella — or a heavy lidded earthenware baking dish — wide enough to hold the lamb in a single layer. Arrange the potato slices in an even, overlapping layer across the base. Season with salt, pepper, and a third of the oregano. Drizzle with olive oil. The potato layer is done when every slice is lightly oiled and lying flat.
2. 2
   Lay the bone-in lamb pieces across the potato in a single, even tier. Season the lamb individually with salt, pepper, and a third of the oregano. Drizzle generously with olive oil. The bones must face upward so that the collagen released during cooking descends through the layers below. The layer is set when the lamb is evenly distributed and the bones are visible.
3. 3
   Scatter the sliced onion over the lamb. Arrange the cherry tomatoes, cut side up, across the top as the final layer. Season with the remaining oregano, salt, and pepper. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and add the measured water around the edge of the dish — not over the layers. This is the step on which the dish lives or dies: the sequence must be exact — potato beneath, lamb in the middle, tomato on top — and the layers must not be disturbed from this point forward. The liquid must be restrained; the tiella braises in vegetable steam, not water.
4. 4
   Cover the dish tightly with its lid or with a double layer of foil, sealed firmly at the rim. Place in the oven and bake for 1 hour. At the end of this period, lift one corner of the lid — the smell rising from the dish will be deeply savoury, of lamb and oregano — and the potato at the base will have absorbed the fat descending from above.
5. 5
   Remove the lid or foil and return the dish to the oven for a further 30 minutes. The tomatoes on top will caramelise and begin to collapse at their edges; the lamb surface will turn a deep golden brown. The dish is ready when the top layer is visibly browned and the jus collected at the base of the dish is concentrated and dark.
6. 6
   Remove from the oven and rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Spoon the lamb-and-vegetable jus collected at the base over each plated portion. Serve directly from the terracotta dish, lifting the layers intact — potato, lamb, tomato — in order.