Mother’s Day: Roast Lamb with Rosemary and Garlic

I think I may have to make this whole roast thing a weekend staple – although for this particular instance it’s an early Mother’s Day celebration for Lyn – except she likes her meat cremated and I cannot go past medium rare! But she did seem to like the coconut slice I made for her.

So the roast potatoes are basically the same as the roast potatoes in the previous roast chicken post. The carrots, peas and cauliflowers are just steamed in the steamer – add the carrots first and the peas last.

Let’s talk about the lamb. I bought a full leg of lamb from the butcher but that was way too big so I asked him to cut the leg in half and chucked the other half in the freezer (probably more roast next weekend!). The favourite lamb flavouring is of course rosemary and garlic. I’m left with 1 kg of lamb on the bone. Plenty for 5-6 people. We end up with a lot of leftover.

First things first, preheat your oven to 200’C.

Slice an onion and a carrot thickly and line up a baking tray with them. Smash up some garlic cloves (maybe 4-5) and scatter them around as well.

Start with making some incisions in the lamb leg so you can insert some garlic slivers (I use about three cloves) and rosemary. On go the salt & pepper and a bit of olive oil. Give everything a bit of a rub. Then stud the incisions with garlic and rosemary. Turn it over and do the same on the other side.

Into the oven for about 1 3/4 hours at 200 ‘c with the fan on for medium.

If the onion/carrots are starting to burn, add a bit of water to the tray. When you have about 1/2 hour to go, put your potatoes in. See how to roast potatoes

And the gravy. Again see the last post on gravy

Leave the lamb to rest for about 10 minutes before carving it up.

Plate it up! Happy Mother’s Day! (Although my family doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day in May – we do it in August)