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Bob's finest leg of lamb

Posted by: Bob Hart | 27 October, 2011 - 3:52 PM

ASK your butcher for a leg of his finest Spring lamb, around 2kg in weight, that has been hanging, in his cool room and attached to the carcase, for around two weeks. This is a joint for which you can expect to pay around $19 a kg.

Assuming your oven is sensibly proportioned (and, on this occasion, set at 220C) there is no need for him to crack the shin bone - a one-piece leg is fine. Massage it with extra virgin olive oil, and season well.

Now, take small sprigs of rosemary, slivers of garlic and spikes of anchovy fillets, created by cutting flat fillets a couple of times each on the diagonal. Using a small knife, work little bouquets of these, together, into slits poked into the lamb in about a dozen spots around the leg.

Place the leg on a rack in a roasting dish, pour a white wine and water mixture into the pan, but not enough of it to touch the meat, and place in the oven. After 20 minutes, turn down to 190C, and check after about an hour. It should be deliciously pink, but, if you take it out and rest it as this point, it will continue to cook and set for another 20 minutes, finishing a moist and perfect pale pink. If you do not like pink lamb, add another 10-20 minutes to the cooking time.

Try deglazing the roasting dish with a sparkling white wine. Also, heads of garlic, sliced horizontally, are great with roasted lamb: roast them with the meat, and squeeze the garlic pulp into the pan juices to thicken it, whisking it in well.

Slice your lamb simply and thinly with a flexible and very sharp knife, and do not be intimidated by those who insist the only way to carve a leg of lamb is perpendicular to the bone. That is ONE way, but not the only one. The best way is the one you find the easiest. But however you carve it, this will make a magnificent Sunday roast - a few slices of lamb, some spuds, beans and a generous dollop of red current jelly. And no, I am not fond of mint sauce - an abrasive concoction created by the Brits to disguise the flavour of rancid lamb.

Serve it with your finest cabernet sauvignon - ideally, something from Coonawarra. Cab-sav likes lamb almost as much as I do.

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3AW Food - Eating Melbourne

3AW is Food: Melburnians love to eat so it's fortunate we live in the culinary capital of Australia. On this dedicated food page you will find the latest recipes by Bob Hart as well as Tony Leonard's Pub of the Week reviews. La Luna head chef Adrian Richardson also serves up a dish from his own cook book and food reviewer Ela Carte visits one of Melbourne's hottest eateries weekly.