Thursday, August 6, 2009

Summer Roast Lamb

Oh summer! So lovely! Hot weather, fresh produce, eating things prepared in the simplest way possible! Well, this week we have had a little dip in the temperature, and while I am disappointed to be robbed of any of our short summer, it did provide a little reprieve in which I could think about cooking and baking again without the consequence of turning my entire home into a giant oven. As I have mentioned in the past, my husband and I bought a lamb last fall, and have been having excellent adventures in learning to cook different cuts of meat. This time around, we wanted to do a bone in leg of lamb roast, and after sourcing a lot of advice on how to do it, we finally made it happen, and the results were sublime!

My first thought was to touch base with a fellow local food blogger that is often cooking up some sort of wild game. I figured Kevin Kossowan might have some experience with a leg of lamb (or anything else) and BBQing (this is when it was still hot out). He did, but only butterflied, and I was not at the point where I wanted to work on my butchering skills, so that was a no go. Many weeks later I succumbed to Googling "How to cook leg of lamb" and found a wonderful thread on Chowhound giving me all the info I needed.

Here is what I did:
1. Sliced little openings throughout the leg of lamb and stuffed the openings with rosemary and garlic.
2. Chopped up some oregano and thyme to rub on the outside of the roast with some coarse salt and pepper.
3. Put the lamb in a roaster at 450 F for 15 minutes.
4. Turn the oven down to 350 F and cook for a further two hours.

Easy peasy. The lamb was delish - excellent texture and nice and moist. When not pregnant I would maybe do it a little more rare, but my husband and I ate a really obscene amount of meat all in one sitting seeing as this roast was so nicely done. If only he would have let me take more time to actually get some decent photos instead of these blurry, poorly lit ones!

4 comments:

  1. Love lamb. Love it so much. Never had it in the roast form though, although we'd like to try it. We just had lamb recently in a pot pie, and it was to die for!

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  2. Ah - I think you served yourself well by avoiding the grill. I've seen Jamie Oliver roast or braise a leg like that and then finish it on a wood fire spit. Really needs the slow and low to allow the collagen to do its thing. Well done.

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  3. Looks excellent! Lamb shanks are my fav.

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  4. Wow - this looks tasty and I've never even tried lamb!

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