Make a big old roast for Sunday dinner tonight. It is the iconic Sunday dinner, it is delicious and it looks way more difficult to make than it actually is. Invite some people over and start the week off right–with a giant hunk of roast meat, some roasted veggies and people you love sharing the same table.
Get a leg of lamb. Season it all over with salt, pepper and coriander. Drizzle on some olive oil. Take about a cup of herbs (I used thyme, oregano, rosemary and savory–but mix it up) and rub them all over the leg. Let the leg sit out about an hour to come to room temperature. Meantime preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the leg in the oven at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 and cook for another hour and twenty minutes (for medium rare). Cook an additional 20 minutes if you you want it more towards medium well.
One piece of kitchen equipment I would recommend for the giant roast is a kitchen thermometer. It is really hard to tell by poking and prodding if a big roast is done at the middle, and a thermometer solves that problem for you. I cooked this roast to 150 degrees, and it was perfectly medium rare. If I were feeding the grandparents, I’d cook it to 160-165 for a medium-well roast. Once your meat is within 5 degrees of the temperature you want it, take it out of the oven. It will continue to cook slightly more. Let it rest at least 20 minutes before carving.
If you can’t find a bone-in leg, you can use the same recipe for a boneless leg-just reduce the cooking time by 20 minutes since a boneless piece of meat will cook faster.
Serve it with horseradish, or mint jelly, or minty salsa verde. I went with salsa verde just because I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. Salsa verde has been around since the Romans, though they probably used it to hide the flavor of rancid meat, and it is a great basic recipe. If you have herbs growing in your garden, you will always have the ingredients on hand to make an herby salsa verde. Herbs are the number one priority in my yard, since I use them with almost every meal.
Roast some veggies to go with and you have a delicious roast beast Sunday feast.
Herbed Roast Leg of Lamb
Ingredients
- 1
6# bone-in leg of lamb - 1 cup
chopped mixed herbs - 1/4 cup
olive oil - 3 TBLS
kosher salt - 1 TBLS
pepper - 1 TBLS
coriander seed, ground
Cooking Directions
- Preheat oven to 450.
- Take the lamb out of the refrigerator. Drizzle the olive oil over the leg, then rub in the salt, pepper, coriander and herbs. Let sit at room temperature for an hour.
- Roast at 450 for 15 minutes.
- Reduce oven temperature to 325.
- Cook 1 hour and 20 minutes, until internal temperature is 150 degrees (be careful not to hit the bone when you are taking the temperature).
- Let rest at least 20 minutes before carving.
Minty Salsa Verde
Ingredients
- 1
shallot, chopped - Zest of 1
lemon - Juice of 1
lemon - 1 clove
garlic, crushed - 1/4 cup
capers - 1/2 cup
parsley, chopped - 1/2 cup
mint, chopped - 1 cup
extra virgin olive oil
Cooking Directions
- In a bowl, mix the shallot, garlic, lemon juice, zest and capers. Let it sit 15 minutes.
- Just before serving, add the herbs and olive oil.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
Nice pictures! Love your herb garden!
Nice garden. Tasty food too.