Easter roast leg of lamb

[wilburpan]

I had been going back and forth over whether to try a leg of lamb for Easter, mainly because based on previous experience, I thought I was looking at having to buy an 8-10 lb. leg of lamb, which would have been way more than the four of us could handle. Luckily, this weekend I found a 3 lb. boneless New Zealand leg of lamb at one of our local stores. Still a lot of meat for a family of four, but much more manageable.

 

For this cook, I followed a recipe that I found on the Serious Eats website. Here goes.

 

The rub is a mixture of rosemary, garlic, shallots, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, and anchovies, sautéed in olive oil until the garlic and shallots are tender. After transferring the mixture to a bowl to cool, I added in kosher salt and black pepper, and mixed it up good.

 

 

 

Here’s the leg of lamb, fat side up.

 

 

I opened up the leg, and spread about half the rosemary garlic mixture on the inside.

 

 

Then I rolled up the leg again, and trussed it up with some butchers twine, because my understanding is that if the leg of lamb opens up when cooking, it’s a big mess.

 

 

The remaining rosemary garlic mixture gets rubbed onto the outside. At this point, I could have stuck into the fridge to wait overnight, but I didn’t plan that far ahead.

 

 

The leg went into Smaug, who was set up for indirect cooking at 275ºF.  I waited until I hit an internal temperature of 130ºF. Here’s what it looked like when it was done.

 

 

 

I took out the heat deflector, fired Smaug up to 500ºF, and direct grilled the outside for about 10 minutes. Here’s the final product.

 

 

Sliced open, and served.

 

 

 

It was delicious — super tasty and juicy. The lighting in the sliced open picture makes it look like the outside was cooked much more than it was. In addition, I think lamb holds up better to being cooked to medium than beef does (I like steaks medium rare). Just think of a lamb gyro that’s cooked to well done, and is still juicy and delicious if done right.

 

Happy Easter!

Edited March 27, 2016 by wilburpan

[MacKenzie]

Wilburpan, what a fantastic cook. It looks sooooooooooo delicious    

[tinyfish]

Everything looks delicious starting at the rub to the final product. The sliced picture of the roast is to die for.

[CeramicChef]

Wilbur - just an absolutely wonderful cook! Beautifully photographed. I love that money shot. Did you roast the potatoes in Smaug as well? What was the total time for this cook?

Great cook, Wilbur, simply a great cook! Kudos to you.

[wilburpan]

Hi Ken,

I did the potatoes in our kitchen oven. They were your basic “toss potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper, and roast at 400°F†dish. I got my timing of the dishes wrong, which is why I had to use the oven.

Total cooking time for the leg of lamb was a little over 3 hours in Smaug’s belly, including searing at the end. Prep time was about 30 minutes.

[CeramicChef]

Hi Ken,

I did the potatoes in our kitchen oven. They were your basic “toss potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper, and roast at 400°F†dish. I got my timing of the dishes wrong, which is why I had to use the oven.

Total cooking time for the leg of lamb was a little over 3 hours in Smaug’s belly, including searing at the end. Prep time was about 30 minutes.

Thanks, Wilbur! A rather appropros meal for Easter I'd say! Very nicely done.

[GoFrogs91]

Gorgeous! Great cook Wilbur.

[ckreef]

Great leg of lamb. I have never seen a boneless leg before. I will keep my eyes out for one as I too only have a small family to feed.

[Cookie]

Nice cook...our butcher always has boneless legs of lamb and I never know what I'd do with them and always opt for something different.  Inspirational.

[tony b]

Around here, it's actually harder to find a leg of lamb with the bone still in it. 

[MadMedik]

I have wanted to do something like this for some time. This is inspirational and looks great. I may try exact recipe. Looks great

[wilburpan]

Thanks for the comments! 

 

There were leftovers, which was not a surprise, given that there are just four of us, and my wife doesn’t eat lamb. I chopped the leftovers into small bits, made a batch of mashed potatoes, and made shepherd’s pie. It was also tasty.

[tony b]

Been wondering what to do with my last piece of lamb - Shepard's Pie! Thanks for the suggestion Wilburpan!