Roast leg of lamb

Big roast, big family

An old fashioned roasted leg of lamb is what you’re missing if your family isn’t too big. Half a leg will feed four. There are two of us. We don’t get to have it very often unless we have people round for dinner.

The same goes for the full roast rib of beef, the whole roast pork belly, a big shoulder of lamb or the turkey, of course. You pay the price for being selfish and not raising a whole bunch of kids. On the other hand of course, the kids might not like lamb anyway.

I love the Greek tradition of roasting the whole lamb for their Orthodox Easter, with obviously the huge Greek family gatherings outside, in clement weather.

It is quite a different story in England where even the Easter egg hunt usually needs to take place indoors because it's wet and awful outside. Hence, clearly, the conclusion: have yourself a large family but only if you live in lovely Mediterranean climate. That's where it's worth it.

Easter lamb

They don't only have better weather in Greece for their Easter; it's also guaranteed to be better as the Orthodox Easter usually falls later in the season than the Catholic Easter.

Likewise they are more likely to roast new season lamb on that spit because, contrary to common perception, British new season lamb is not usually available for Easter dinner, even if the holiday falls relatively late. Too small, too expensive.

So unless you buy meat grown in the southern hemisphere, and that's a no-no by my mantra of locality and seasonality. You'll have to cook the hogget: late season lamb, for Easter.

It is still very good and super-flavoursome. A lot of people don't appreciate the taste of new season roast lamb finding it too bland and milky.

But a leg of hogget lamb will be large, seriously large, so there we go back to square one: you need a large family, or to buy just half the leg for your Easter Sunday lunch.

Bone in or bone out?

Leg of lamb comes on the bone but you can ask your butcher to butterfly it into a boneless leg, which means to cut the joint open to extract and remove the bone. That of course will make carving easy and the cooking times shorter.

But I love meat on the bone even if it makes carving a minor nightmare. The flavour is incomparably better and it makes the meat more difficult to overcook.

Invest in meat thermometer

Let me just mention here the benefits of a digital probe.

Going with the timing of a roast per pound of weight, like below, is reliable but if you want to make sure the roast leg is not completely raw inside (in case you’d forgotten to take it out of the fridge and bring to room temperature) sticking the meat thermometer in to see about 65C will let you relax.

How to season leg of lamb roast

The key ingredient, as I invaluably learnt from Samin Nosrat, is salt. Salting the meat, any meat, as soon as you bring it home from the shops, even if cooking isn't until two days ahead, makes all the difference in the world. It makes the meat tender and fully flavoursome.

As far as the seasonings go, my favourite trio for lamb is anchovy, garlic and rosemary. Meat is the least pretty of all foods but the lamb leg will look nice if scored in diagonal slashes, with slivers of garlic and tufts of rosemary sticking out of the crossing places.

Anchovy melts into umami - and do not worry, it won't make the lamb overly salty on top of the previous salt seasoning. It will be absolutely delicious.

More lamb recipes

Discover the ultimate lamb shawarma recipe, featuring tender lamb leg marinated in 11 Lebanese spices for two days, then cooked to perfection. This authentic Middle Eastern recipe by Ottolenghi is perfect for a special occasion or weekend dinner.

Slow cooked lamb neck fillet, oven braised with onions, peppers, pear and raisins. Lamb with Middle Eastern style flavours in a one-pot dish.

Lamb breast, or lamb belly, is a cheap cut which needs to be cooked really slow and low. My recipe is for rolled breast of lamb stuffed with raisins and served with roast grapes. Rolled or unrolled, roast lamb breast is a cut deserving attention and very easy to cook.

More Easter roast recipes

Braised pork shoulder with chillies and cumin, Mexican style flavours. Beer braised pork shoulder joint takes four hours to cook in the oven and the result is pork so tender it can be pulled or shredded.

Cider braised gammon joint with apples and garlic, slowly cooked in the oven. The best cooking method for a great ham roast or sensational ham sandwiches.

Wing rib or fore rib, beef roasted on the bone is the best, not least because it makes for glorious gravy. Cooking times: 20 minutes at 240C/475, and then 15 minutes per pound of weight at 190C/375. Internal temperature should read 60C/140F.