Roast Leg of Lamb

This is a fabulous dish – inspired by Tessa Kiros in her Falling Cloudberry cook book. A lovely way to
cook and an ideal Sunday Roast. Allow 3 hours for cooking and resting.

This should feed 6 people with enough to make a shepherds pie later in the week. A full roast leg is
actually very easy to do – but please do follow these key steps

Take the lamb out of the fridge 2 hours before starting to get it up to room temperature. Put your
oven on to 250 or 275 degrees – whichever is higher. Cut the onion into thick slices and cut a whole
clove of garlic in half sideways.

Place the onion slices under the joint – in a substantial roasting pan – essentially to keep the underside of the lamb off the pan base. [its worth spending a bit of money to get a decent roasting pan].
Pierce the meaty areas of the leg with a narrow knife – a good 3cm deep. In each incision, push in a
slice of garlic, half an anchovy and a sprig of rosemary. Loosen the bone a wee bit with your knife
and again push in some garlic, rosemary and anchovy.

Rub the joint all over with the juice of a lemon [keep the lemon aside] and the oil from the anchovy
tin. Crush a bit of sea salt into the joint all over.

Now put the pan with joint into the hot oven – for 30 minutes – this is the sizzle stage. Once this is
done turn your oven down to 160 degrees C and add a couple of stalks of rosemary, the whole
lemon cut in half and the halved bulb of garlic. Add a glass of water and a glass of white wine. I
would roast now for an hour.

After an hour – remove from oven and add the potatoes making sure they get a coating of the oily,
lemony liquid. Sprinkle the dish liberally with the dried oregano. You may want to add more water
and white wine if the pan is looking a little dry. Cover the pan with foil and put back in the oven for
another hour. Give the potatoes a stir half way through.

Remove the pan and the foil and check there is still sufficient liquid around the potatoes. Remove
the lamb from the pan and wrap in the foil to rest for half an hour. Put the pan back in the oven –
the potatoes will be cooked but this last stage will add some crispy bits to the exposed edges. You
want soft lemony potatoes with crispy edges. You still want liquid in the pan so keep an eye on it!

I like to carve the lamb and place the slices back in the pan, making sure you get some of that liquid
onto the lamb. Pour over any resting juices. I place the potatoes down one side and use the
roasting pan to serve at the table family style. Serve with a green vegetable as you like it.

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