Greek-style roast lamb

Serves:

Ingredients

• 2.2kg leg of lamb, bone in
• handful of fresh rosemary
• 2 tbspn fresh oregano or marjoram
• 3 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• 2 lemons
• salt and pepper

Method

Remove the lamb from the fridge for half an hour before cooking. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Cut the cloves of garlic into quarters, cut slits into the lamb and push a garlic quarter into each slit.

Place the lamb into a baking dish and sprinkle the fresh rosemary and oregano/marjoram over the meat. Turn the meat over and cover the underside with the herbs too.

Cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice directly onto the lamb.

Pour enough olive oil over the lamb to coat it.

Add salt and pepper.

Using your hands, massage the lamb thoroughly with the herbs, lemon juice, salt, pepper and oil until it is all completely coated.

Place in the oven for 1 hour 10 mins.

Remove from oven and cover loosely with foil for 20 mins before carving.

Notes:

• I am lucky enough to have a rosemary bush in my garden so I pick two stalks of rosemary and fold them under the lamb as it cooks for extra flavour.
• Don’t worry about chopping the herbs – just simply put them in the palm of my hand and give them a good squeeze to bruise the leaves and release the delicious oils and aromas.
• I usually tuck the squeezed lemon halves into the baking dish too while the lamb cooks.
• As a general rule, cook lamb for 15 mins for every 500g to have lovely pink meat – if you like your meat a little more done, give it 20 mins per 500g.
• Resting the meat is a vital last step to a successful roast as this allows the juices to be reabsorbed by the meat. If you carve a roast straight from the oven, you’ll find that all the juices end up at the bottom of the carving dish.
• This recipe was created by Ella Walsh for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.

Serving Suggestions

Note