I don’t absolutely love lamb so I don’t make it very often.  However, Tara really loves it and when my parents visited last weekend, they requested that I make a lamb dish.  So, I opted for roasting a leg of lamb.  It feeds a crowd and is pretty forgiving.  The other bonus is that it produces slices of meat with varying levels of doneness so if you enjoy rare meat, it’s there.  Likewise, if you prefer your lamb on the medium or medium rare side, the leg provides slices at that temperature too.  I think a lot of people might get a bit intimidated with the leg of lamb because of both the size of the meat as well as the perceived time it takes to cook.  The good news here is that it really doesn’t take longer than a traditional roast pork or beef.  I started it at a very high oven temperature and allowed it to cook for about 20 minutes and then lowered the temperature, removed it from the oven, and rubbed it all over with the garlic and herbs before returning it to the oven at a much lower temperature to finish cooking for about an hour.  As it turns out, everyone (myself included) really liked the lamb so I will definitely make it again at some point in the near future.

I paired the lamb with roasted vegetables and polenta and accented that with a veal reduction and tomato reduction and a touch of watercress.  It was very good that way but if you don’t want to make the veal reduction or the tomato reduction, you can certainly skip one or both.  The dish would be delicious without it as well.  Recipe and more pictures after the jump… Continue reading →