Roast Leg of Lamb
Recipe information
Yield
serves 8 to 10
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
A 7-pound leg, hip and sirloin removed, weighs about 5 pounds and serves 8 to 10. Timing: about 2 hours in a 325°F oven to internal temperature 140°F for medium rare; to 125° to 130°F for rare; to 120°F for blood rare. Before roasting, you may wish to puncture the meat in a dozen places and push in slivers of garlic, then brush the surface with oil, or paint on a mustard coating (see page 52). Roast fat side up in a preheated oven as described in the master recipe, rapidly basting every 15 minutes with accumulated fat. After an hour, strew in 1/2 cup of chopped onions and several large cloves of smashed unpeeled garlic. Make the sauce as described in the master recipe (see page 50), adding 1/2 teaspoon of rosemary, and 2 cups of chicken broth.
A Simple Sauce for Lamb
Step 2
Have the lamb hip-and tailbones (plus other lamb bones or scraps if available) chopped or sawed into 1/2-inch pieces, and brown with a little oil in a heavy pan with a chopped carrot, onion, and celery stalk. Sprinkle on a tablespoon of flour and brown, stirring for a minute or two. Add a chopped plum tomato, an imported bay leaf, and a big pinch of rosemary, plus chicken broth and water to cover. Simmer slowly, loosely covered, for 2 hours, adding more liquid as needed. Strain, degrease, and boil down to concentrate flavor. Use this plus 1/2 cup of dry white wine to make your deglazing sauce.
Step 3
Simple Sauce for Meat and Poultry. Follow the same general system as above for other meat and poultry sauces, using beef or poultry bones and scraps, other herbs, and beef rather than chicken broth, as appropriate.
Step 4
Port or Madeira Sauce. Use exactly the same system, substituting dry port or Madeira wine for the dry white wine.
Leg of Lamb Notes
Step 5
Whether you buy the whole leg, the shank end, or the sirloin end, you roast it in the same way. The leg is much easier to carve when the hip- and tailbones have been removed. Don’t buy a whole leg weighing more than 7 1/2 pounds unless you know it has been properly aged—otherwise it can be unpleasantly tough.
