Roast Leg of Lamb | Christine Cushing

[Music] hi I'm Christy Cushing and welcome to another helping from my quarantine kitchen where we make fun easy recipes that nourish the soul today it's gonna be a little Greek style leg of lamb roasted in the oven lemon potatoes you know there's gonna be oregano in there and lots of olive oil let's get ready to make this super simple and extremely Oh homey amazing dish so let me introduce you to this beautiful leg of lamb this is roughly 1.75 kilos let's say in and around four and a half to five pounds with the bone in looking really great this happens to be the season we're in spring so this is a good time to make lamb and really every day can be a Sunday dinner cuz we're all at home now so I wanted to give us that again heighten that feel good so this is the trick and this is the way my dad I'm gonna start with my dad's way and then I add my own little versions to it the Greek way of making lamb is what we do is cut garlic cloves into slivers so don't even ask me how many cloves are in here a few but you'll get the full recipe down below where it always is so coupling cutting them into slivers like that because they're actually going to be jammed into the leg of lamb they're gonna actually be pierced in there so what we do is take a little bit of sea salt kosher salt whatever you want and then throw a few of these pieces of the garlic slivers hit it with a fair bit of cracked black kind of exaggerating it here tossing it together and in there what the heck I'm gonna throw in a little bit of time I'm winging this just in terms of what's going in there cuz I love to do that and now what's gonna happen I'm gonna make some little incisions and I'm gonna jam these small garlic cloves right in there so you see that making an incision just turning it around and I can actually see my dad doing this years ago I can picture him not gonna be too fussy about this just in just making a little bit of a twist and then that seasoned garlic is gonna go in there and it's gonna really flavor the meat throughout as it roasts few of those on each side I like to just kind of distribute them evenly let's go around to the other side and here as many as you like I mean really this is a fairly small leg of lamb which actually in Greece this is more or less the size that they like it's younger it's more delicate it's milder let me just do one more here in the shank okay jam that in so it is garlic studded right on all sides just enough so what I'm gonna do now is start creating kind of a little layer of flavor on the outside let me draw your attention to this baking sheet so the more shallow the baking sheet you use the more dark the meat is going to get because really the steam is gonna escape and you're gonna get a nice caramelization the deeper your pan the more steam that's gonna stay in so again totally up to you so let's get ready here on some flavor lemon I mean I don't even have to say it anymore right for this though I'm gonna do something a little bit different I'm taking my little zester here and I'm gonna do strips of the lemon zest to give it a bit more texture and this will just go on top it'll go on the potatoes did I mention we're doing potatoes as well roasted lamb and potatoes I mean it doesn't get any better than that okay so these are gonna go aside and now the juice of maybe half to a whole lemon I don't want to make it super lemony this is not about the lemon per se but it's about introducing that flavor because it does cut the fat so I'm gonna start with the juice of a half a lemon but this is a pretty meager lemon right this is a good example so you're looking at this recipe says juice of half a lemon I mean there's no two lemons that have the same amount of juice so this is where you got to come in as the master of your domain your kitchen and you have to know how much should I use I would say the juice of one lemon is good they're going in with a little bit of olive oil not too much because lamb has a nice amount of fat there so I don't want to just put too too much in and now a little bit of controversy I love using this on my lamb this happens to be Betty meze Betty meze is just great must that's cooked down in Italian VIN Cotto I love using it with lamb I'm gonna add a little bit not too much this is just gonna introduce a little bit of sweetness but also gonna give my lamb just an amazing color and you see what happens right away it's just gonna introduce a little just a little bit of sugar it really tastes like grapes if you've ever tasted it it's like a concentration of grapes as opposed to let's say balsamic vinegar which is more sweet more tangy this is much more in the center it's so so good so shall we do a little slathering on all around a little bit on the top look at that I'm gonna make sure I get it all in the nooks and crannies and give it a little massage here beautiful making sure that I've got a little glaze all around this lamb okay pretty good right now where are we gonna go so I've got this salt this salt and pepper combination I'm gonna set it aside because I do want to use it on top I also have my lemon zest I'm gonna set that aside I'm going for thyme and rosemary to me lamb needs lots of fresh herbs in Greece probably they're just gonna use oregano as you know but to me rosemary thyme tarragon mint dill I mean you can go on and on if I wanted to make this more promo Sal I would use what they call in Provence the South of France herb de Provence which has like six or seven herbs so here comes a little bit of thyme I'm keeping it course not gonna do it too finely like that and again the quintessential Greek dish is no nonsense it's simple it's the easiest way that you can make something so I'm not fussing with this at all so here I go with the seasoned salt and pepper from a height so it's evenly distributed not gonna go too crazy on this which a lot of people do then let's give it a little rosemary and thyme combo and let's not forget oregano a little bit like that oh I can totally imagine this dish give it a little swoosh flip it over and repeat salt and pepper combo my one beef with I guess Greeks and the quantity of salt is a little bit too much salt even now when I go to Greece I always have to say let's take it easy on the salt so you want it you know to balance the flavor but you don't want it to be so pronounced I ran out of pepper so I'm going in with a bit of pepper again with my beautiful herbs you can't have enough fresh herbs you just can't have enough in my opinion we're going in good there and I'm not being fussy with this a little bit less of the oregano because it's dried just like that oh baby does that look good I'm gonna flip this over now did anybody say but that this of course you gotta have roast potatoes if you're going to the trouble to make some lamb so here I'm going with just some whole potatoes I'm gonna toss right in there when you roast the potatoes whole like this they're gonna be a little bit creamier inside because they steam with it with their little jackets on so again totally up to you I'm leaving a lot of this to you let's drizzle with a little bit of olive oil the lamb is gonna render some fat so I don't want to slather them too much again going with a bit of salt on the potatoes now I have to say the thing about when you go to Greece if you've ever been to Greece even if you're a three Michelin star chef it changes the whole paradigm of how you cook lamb period because in Greece lamb is cooked slowly until it's fall off the bone it's almost like we're replicating the spit you know where it's cooked and it's just that so they call it lucuma which means basically like a Turkish delight you know it's like it's so tender so soft it just Falls and melts in your mouth now here this is where I'm gonna leave it to you if you want it to be nice and soft and fall off the bone you're gonna cook it a little bit longer so right now let me add my lemon zest oh this is gonna be so amazing exciting you see how I'm just free-flowing it gonna add a few bay leaves in here everything's gonna add a teeny bit of flavor just gonna make sure that my potatoes have some olive oil around not too much okay and I'm gonna just keep my eye on this I could add just a little bit of water but I'm not gonna do that now I'm gonna see what's happening in the oven and the oven 350 degrees is where I'm setting it at Fahrenheit about 170 Celsius I'm opting here to start lower and I'm gonna raise the temperature towards the end for the reason that then I can control that color so this is a bit of a of an opposite fundamental but it works really well ready that's all it was in the oven first phase probably an hour and a half or so one hour and 20 minutes exactly here's what I'm talking about yes oh if I had a mic I'd drop it look at that beautiful amazing color I'm starting to like run in the spot do you see what that bet the meze that beautiful it's by the way one of the most ancient natural sweeteners you see this amazing color it's like I spit roasted this one hour and 20 minutes it was all at 350 degrees but you're gonna get all those details now it's time to taste look at this so this is the shank which is gonna cook most quickly this is the part that I always go for because it's absolutely beautiful it's the most tender right away this is a hand situation you see that golden crimson color that's what I'm talking about such perfect round flavor that is gorgeous so for me here what I did I cooked it so that the shank is nice and tender and it's almost falling off the bone and there's still a little bit of pink left if you want to do it fully Greek style you want to cook it for a long long long time this was an hour and 20 minutes let me show you what it looks like where there's still a little bit of pink oh yeah let's not forget these beautiful potatoes look at what happens there so with the skin on they steamed on the inside and they absorb all of this amazing flavor this is what I'm talking about this is a weekend Sunday dinner that could be any day cuz we're all home Greek style thank you so much for joining me in the quarantine kitchen again to share this beautiful trip to Greece with an amazing roasted leg of lamb please give me a thumbs up share let me know what's happening in your kitchen I want challenges I want requests see you next time from the quarantine kitchen thank you so much hope that you're well

Channel: MyFavouriteFoods ChristineCushing

Views: 395,870

Rating: 4.8613367 out of 5

Keywords: Christine Cushing, Quarantine Roast Leg of Lamb | Christine Cushing, roasted leg of lamb & potatoes, roast leg of lamb, leg of lamb recipe, leg of lamb roast recipe, leg of lamb bone in, leg of lamb greek style, my favourite foods, Greek leg of lamb, Greek roast lamb, grape syrup, petimezi, Ellada, wallofchefs, rosemary, garlic, potatoes, roast potatoes, oregano, lemon, thyme, vincotto, balsamic vinegar, quarantinekitchen, Greece, Greek food, Hellas, vino cotto, Easter lamb, Australia

Id: IY-APLW3eoM

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Sat May 23 2020