Saturday night leg of lamb

On Friday, I made a trip to a grocery store in Naperville because they had bone-in leg of lamb on sale for only 3.99 a pound. These days, that’s a great price. All day long Saturday, I was looking forward to a good lamb dinner. Finally, just about the time our blizzard stopped, I pulled the lamb out of the fridge, and seasoned it up.

When you have a good lamb roast like this, you don’t want a heavy hand with the seasoning. It is important to let the wonderful lamb flavor shine through. A little garlic under the fat, will be plenty, along with a little dusting of cajun seasoning. Saturday night, I had my neighbors over for dinner, and I got rave reviews. Here is how I prepared the lamb.

5 lb. bone-in leg of lamb

1 large clove of garlic

Cajun seasoning

White pepper

Thyme

Olive oil

Sea salt

Flour

Water

1 sprig of fresh rosemary

Preparation

About a half hour before you plan to start cooking, pull the roast out of the fridge, and set it in a cast iron pan, fattest side up. Take a large clove of garlic and cut it into little slivers. Use a sharp knife, and insert the garlic slivers through the fat, into the meat. Once they are all inserted, rub the roast  with olive oil, and then season it with a light dusting of cajun seasoning, a little thyme, and some white pepper. Sprinkle the lamb with some sea salt, and then let it sit for a half hour at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Set the roast in the oven. The usual guide is twenty minutes per pound, but well before that time is up, start taking internal readings with an instant read thermometer. Lamb should be roasted medium rare. Despite what the cookbooks tell you, you should take the lamb out of the oven when it has an internal temperature that just reaches 120º. At that point, the lamb is rare, but if you take the roast out, set it in a warm place (usually near the oven vent) for about ten minutes, it will be perfectly medium rare when you slice it.

Set the lamb on a serving plate, and set that by the oven vent so you can make gravy. Set the cast iron pan on the stove over medium high heat. Sprinkle on enough flour to absorb most of the fat, and it become a slurry. Stir and cook the wet flour mixture for about three minutes. Season it with salt and white pepper, and if you like, a little adobo seasoning. Start adding water, a little at a time, to make a gravy. Take a rosemary sprig, and snip it with a scissors over the gravy. Stir that in. When you think you have the thickness right, let it simmer another minute, you may need to add a spec more water. When the gravy is a nice thickness, you are ready to serve.

Serving

We served our sliced roast lamb next to a pile of mashed potatoes. Smother both with gravy. Add a pile of mixed vegetables, and some homemade bread and butter. I had a medium bodied Cabernet Sauvignon to go with dinner.  Sorry about the sloppiness of the photos. I forgot to snap them, until my second helping. Thank goodness there was still some left.