Lamb Roast for Autumn

I love a roast. During my five years as a vegetarian the only meat I missed was mum's roast lamb. As the weather grows colder and the evenings become darker earlier I thought it would be the perfect meal to share with my friends.

Driving back from my trip to the supermarket with a large lamb leg sitting beside me I called my sister and said 'so I've bought a leg of lamb ... how do I roast it?'

You see, I had only ever roasted lamb in a convection oven which would do all the weighing and adjusting heat and length of time. It would even beep at me and tell me when I needed to turn the meat over. Now in my lovely new home I have an oven which sometimes acts like it has a mind of its own but it certainly doesn't communicate with me.

So with a little help from my sister here is what I did.

Ingredients

• 2.35kg leg of lamb
• bunch of rosemary (direct from my garden)
• some Australian garlic (several cloves)
• Pepper and salt

Could it be simpler that that?

Now to put it all together

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• Chop up the rosemary into bits
• Chop garlic cloves into quarters
• pierce the lamb with a sharp knife to make enough space to press a garlic piece inside. Do this several times and on both sides of the leg
• Then sprinkle salt, pepper and the rosemary over the meat and rub in - like you are giving the lamb an exfoliating rub. Be warned if you have any cuts ... you'll know about it!
• Do this until the entire lamb is covered (both sides)
• Place your lamb in a baking tray . I don't have a fancy roasting tray with a doovalacky that drains the juices off so I just put my cooling rack over a normal baking tray and put it into the oven in the middle. 
• Now this is when things are dependant on your oven. I've been told that you roast 1 hour for each kg of meat. So that would mean 2.35 hours. In my oven it actually took closer to 3.5 hours. 
• Pull your roasted lamb out of the oven and cover with foil and let it rest for ten to twenty minutes. 
• Carve and serve with roasted veggies - YUM!

Additional experiment
After carving up my meat (and I think I need some lessons to dramatically improve my technique there) I looked at all the juices that remained in the tray. Why not make some gravy? Can't be that hard right? So I looked in my cupboard and found some arrowroot flour which I added to the juice I now had heating in a saucepan on the stove.

I might need to work on the gravy. I ended up with something which was tasty but seriously salty. Not something I would serve up to guests unless I also offered comprehensive health cover. 

Result

Delicious is a word that comes to mind. I had so much meat it fed me for over a week after the meal I shared with my friends. As someone who struggles to get red meat into her diet and in addition to that has low iron, I got quite a boost that week.

The meat was tender, the garlic pieces were roasted to perfection and the rosemary flavour was infused throughout.

Verdict

I would definitely do this again. It certainly takes time which I'm not usually good at but it's well worth the wait. Mind you, I might try and source a smaller leg of lamb next time!

The perfect meal to make when I'm in writing mode.