- Oh my goodness, is this
roasted leg of lamb so delicious. I seriously just crushed like five slices. It's amazing. If you don't
make this, you are crazy. It's so simple to prepare. It's very easy to cook. You will love this recipe. Whenever I'm making lamb, it's
always one of my best days because it's hands down one of my favorite all-time proteins. It's juicy. It's tender. The flavors are fantastic. Now, for this recipe that I'm gonna make, I'm using a bone-in leg of lamb. Perhaps maybe you can only
get a boneless leg of lamb. It's gonna be totally fine because it still applies
to the same procedures that I'm going to use. But first we need to
knock out a little prep. You good? Let's cook. We are gonna begin by finely mincing up a whole bunch of fresh garlic
cloves that's gonna be used to season up our leg of lamb. And you know me, I hate chopping garlic, so I'm just gonna simply run
it through my garlic press. Get all of the extra goodness
that's on the end there. Put it in a bowl, and
simply set it to the side. And then next, I've got some fresh herbs, starting with rosemary. Now, to get all of these herbs off, what I like to do is hold
the sprig and then pull down, which will release all the leaves. We are gonna leave these
whole just like this. It's gonna season up our lamb as well. And then I've got some fresh thyme. We do the exact same
process. I love thyme. It's probably hands down my favorite herb. It's so versatile. It's got some great flavors in there. It's gonna go excellent in this dish. So set that to the side, and now it's time to break out our big
old bone-in leg of lamb. Now, this lamb is about seven pounds. You can go all the way up to nine pounds. And of course if you're
using a boneless lamb, you're looking at about
two to four pounds. Now what I wanna do is take a
very sharp knife and score it, almost like making a chessboard. So starting from the bone,
all the way to the back, slice all the way through,
about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch deep, and then again, like I said, a chessboard. Go back in. Go against the slices that you did before. And absolutely do this on both sides. What this is going to do is allow for a lot of our seasoning,
herbs, and garlic to get down into those cracks and crevices and season everything up. Now, to start, we are gonna add on some extra virgin olive oil. And then definitely take
the time to rub this in, and, again, on both sides. Now taking the finely minced
garlic, we are gonna rub it in. And you'll immediately
notice that the garlic goes into those little slices that we made. That's, again, gonna
help season up everything and make it taste delicious. Now, for the herbs, we're
gonna add on those thyme leaves and those rosemary leaves. And, again, rub them in,
I can't say it enough, on both sides. It doesn't need to just be on the top. This is a big piece of meat, and it needs as much flavor as possible, so on all sides is what you do. And then this part is optional. I'm just gonna add on a
little bit of dry white wine. Gonna help season it up as well. And then of course very
generously season on both sides with sea salt and fresh
cracked black pepper. And be generous here. Remember, this is a
seven-pound piece of meat. It's not a small six to
eight-ounce filet mignon. So what I'm gonna do at this
point is completely wrap it up with plastic wrap, and then we're heading right
over to the refrigerator. And when it comes to marinating,
I always suggest overnight, at least 12 hours, but you could absolutely
take this to 48 hours for even more flavor. Now, if you were in Italy and you were making a recipe like this, you may see a bunch of
different parts of lamb. You may see a rack. You may see ribs. You may see just a lamb
shank, a bone-in, boneless. You name it. All parts are good to eat when in Italy. So if you can only get your
hands on a few of these things, just follow the procedures
like I said earlier. It still applies. Here's what we do now. Pull out the lamb after it's
been marinating overnight or, again, for at least 12 hours and all the way up to 48 hours. Let's take off the plastic wrap. Fantastic, it smells awesome in here. So what I'm gonna do is
just put some gloves on here so I can transfer it. We are going over to a large roasting pan that I put a rack right
into the center of that pan. Let me stop really quick and say if you do not have a rack
to put this on, no worries. Just set it right down in your pan. What the rack does is really helps just brown up the bottom part. You're not gonna lose a ton of flavor, so don't quite worry about it. Now we're going in the oven. Go ahead and take that lamb in the pan. Go over to the oven, and what we're gonna do is
put it in at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, get it
nice and browned up, and then we're gonna come back
and turn the heat back down to 350 degrees. And it's gonna take about 80 to 90 minutes for this to finish cooking. All right, a few things. The reason I started it off at 425 degrees Fahrenheit is
really for two main reasons. One, it's to help get the chill off of it because, remember, it's been sitting in the refrigerator all night. And secondly, it's to help activate that browning process a
little bit more quickly. Now, if you were in Italy and you were eating this for Easter, or if you're just in an Italian family, you wanna eat this for Easter, you may have heard it
called abbacchio al forno. Now, traditionally this
is served with potatoes. Even though potatoes
aren't served in the name, if you said, "I'm making
abbacchio al forno," people would automatically know that you're serving it with potatoes. So with about 30 minutes
left in the cooking process, we're gonna get started on
making these, so easy, so good, and they go great with this lamb. Here we go. So I've got about three pounds
of yellow potatoes here. Obviously you can absolutely
use russet potatoes. Even if you had red potatoes, fine. You know I always promote
to use what you have. But what I'm gonna do is
slice these up pretty thick. So slice 'em in half, turn 'em, and then I make two or three slices. As long as it's about an
inch to two inches in size, that's good. And then I've got a shallot. If you do not have a shallot, absolutely just use a red onion. We're going to slice the ends off. Slice it in half. Of course remove that outside peel. Then I'm just gonna turn
them and lay them down and thinly slice them just like this. That's just gonna add some
great flavor to the potatoes. You might also see in
this recipe some tomatoes or peppers as well. So go ahead and add them to the potatoes. We're going over to the cooktop, and we're gonna add some olive
oil to a large nonstick pan. Now add the potatoes and
the shallots right in there. And then right after you do add it, spread 'em out just to sort of
evenly space them in the pan, and then generously season them with sea salt and fresh
cracked black pepper. And what we're gonna do is cook these for about 10 to 12
minutes on the stove top. Don't get anxious about
constantly moving them around. Make sure they have
enough time to brown up. That's what makes them so flavorful. And then after that time once
they're a little bit brown, we need to finish cooking them, so we are gonna add them
to the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes. Now for how long does this cook? I like lamb around medium, so I pull it at about
135 degrees Fahrenheit. When using a bone-in leg
of lamb like I'm doing, and mine's about seven pounds, you're looking at between
15 and 20 minutes a pound. So total with that 425 degree process, you're looking at about 90 to 120 minutes. But, hey, you may be saying, "Chef Billy Parisi, I want this
thing lamb al asador style," which is like literally fall off the bone. Think smoked pork shoulder where it just literally
falls right off the bone. What you would want to do off the bat is completely cover it in foil. Put it in the oven on 325 degrees for 4 to 4 1/2 hours. We really wanna cook this. And then take the foil off
for the last 30 minutes, turn the heat up to 375,
and continue to cook it. You want it to be in between 202 and 205
degrees Fahrenheit internally. I gave you two options. You pick. Now let's have a look at our lamb. Go ahead and take the lamb
right out of the oven. Let's put it on the cutting board. Looks amazing, and it's perfect because at this exact same time, our potatoes are gonna
be finished as well. It smells amazing in here. I can't say it enough. My wife, who doesn't
even like lamb, commented and told me how crazy
good it smells in here. That's how awesome it is. She doesn't even like lamb,
loves the smell of this. So, my friends, I say it
to you every single week. It's all about understanding these fundamental basic
cooking techniques, how to properly marinate,
how to roast a leg of lamb. Maybe this is the first time
you've even cooked lamb. It's gonna be so delicious for you. You know what the marinade is. You prepare it yourself. And the homemade food from
scratch will always taste better, just like in this lamb,
I tell you all the time. Now of course we're gonna slice this up, plate up in slow mo. So using a very large slicing knife. If you don't have one, a regular chef's knife
will be totally fine. We're just gonna slice into this. And again, you can start
to see that beautiful pink. This is a perfect medium
internal temperature. And now to plate up, I'm
just gonna add some potatoes right onto a large platter. You could actually serve it up in the roasting pan as well if you'd like. And then just lay that
lamb right over top, and then I'm gonna garnish
with a little more fresh herbs. Looks fantastic, and man, oh,
man, check out this beauty. (upbeat music) Seriously, such a delicious dish. You will love the juiciness
and the tenderness of it. Doesn't matter which way you cook it. Both are fantastic. Be sure to subscribe to my channel. Definitely like and share this video, and check out this video right here. I made it just for you specifically. You'll love it. See you on there. (upbeat music)
