Recipes: Roast leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary
Very little beats a traditional roast lunch. As well as some hearty roast spuds, the sweetness of lamb goes particularly well with the sweetness of butternut squash, and add a little bitterness with a collard green like kale or chard (the colours look great too). The below is a variation on a Jamie Oliver recipe, where he lets the lamb juices drip onto the roasting potatoes – well worth trying.
Ingredients
- 2 kg leg of lamb
- 1 bulb of garlic
- ½ a bunch of fresh rosemary
- 1kg potatoes
- 500g butternut squash
- 1 lemon
- olive oil
Mint Sauce
- 1 bunch of fresh mint
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons wine vinegar
Method
- Remove the lamb from the fridge 1 hour before you want to cook it, to let it come up to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºC/gas 6 and place a roasting dish for the potatoes on the bottom.
- Break the garlic bulb up into cloves, then peel 3, leaving the rest whole. Pick and roughly chop half the rosemary leaves. Peel and halve the potatoes.
- Crush the peeled garlic into a bowl, add the chopped rosemary, finely grate in the lemon zest and drizzle in a good lug of oil, then mix together.
- Season the lamb with sea salt and black pepper, then drizzle with the marinade and rub all over the meat. Place on the hot bars of the oven above the tray – that’s right, straight onto the oven rack, so its juices drip down onto the potatoes and squash as it roasts.
- Parboil the potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water for 10 minutes, then drain and allow to steam dry. Gently toss the potatoes in the colander to scuff up the edges, then tip back into the pan.
- Add the remaining rosemary sprigs and whole garlic cloves to the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, then drizzle over a good lug of oil. Tip the potatoes into the hot tray and place back under the lamb to catch all the lovely juices.
- After about 30 minutes, chop the squash into large cubes and put in with the potatoes.
- Cook the lamb for 1 hour 15 minutes if you want it pink, or 1 hour 30 minutes if you like it more well done.
- Meanwhile, make the mint sauce. Pick and finely chop the mint leaves, then place in a small bowl. Mix in the sugar, a good pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon of hot water and the vinegar.
- When the lamb is cooked to your liking, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes or so. Carve and serve with the roast potatoes, mint sauce and some seasonal greens.
