Roasted Leg of Lamb Recipe - Laura Vitale - Laura in the Kitchen Episode 748

hi guys I'm Laura Vitale and on this episode of Laura in the kitchen I'm bringing you a very very highly requested recipe for Easter and it is just a roasted leg of lamb now this is just a roasted leg of lamb that I this is the only way really I ate roasted leg of lamb as a child because this is how my Nonna prepares it so this is how I'm going to share with you today it's very simple very easy very delicious and it's just it's just what I know and I think of another roasted leg of lamb and I had asked on Twitter a while back what you guys wanted to see for Easter and like 99% of you asked for a roasted leg of lamb and I'm thrilled to share with you because I can see how it could be a little bit intimidating but it really isn't at all we're no Sheffey people around here we just really love our home food and this is something I grew up eating something thrilled to share with you the ingredients you'll need are very few basics this is a semi boneless leg of lamb you can see it's got a thin layer of fat on the very top you can see from the side right here that's not very thick and I'm not going to trim that off I'm just going to leave it on because that's going to provide mega-mega flavor so we have that I've got some fresh rosemary that I've stripped off the stem and I have some close of garlic that I either have to record if they're really thick then I've got a lemon here salt and pepper in a little bit of olive oil very simple very easy let's get started the first thing you want to do is you take a paring knife you want to cut your garlic and rosemary first you take a paring knife and you want to make slits right like so and then in those slits you're going to put in a piece of garlic this is how my Nonna makes it and it just is phenomenal and a piece of rosemary and you're going to do this all over the top you know all over the surface of your lamb and that's just going to infuse all the way into the meat and it becomes just absolutely phenomenal so I'm going to do that and then I will show you the next step now one to have all that I also wanted to point out that at this point you want to make sure your oven is preheated to 425 and the fact that I'm putting this in a roasting dish with a rack over top so that all the fat becomes dripped down and the lamp isn't kind of roasting and its own fat would be the best the worst thing in the world that's not what we're looking for today now this is what my Nonna does now when she makes lamb she either cooks it with wine first or if she's roasting it she rubs it and squeezes a half of a lemon on it because lamb has more of a distinctive flavor and this kind of sort of I wanted to say cuts that but it takes away that really strong flavor and this is what she does so I do it if she's making a stew or something with laminin and she cooks it in wine and that kind of does the same thing so I'm just as you can see I just took a half of my lemon and I'm just kind of squeezing and rubbing all over the surface now I'm going to take just a small drizzle of olive oil you can see not a whole lot maybe not even a tablespoon and then you want to make sure you generally season the salt and pepper lots of salt and pepper that is just beautiful beautiful beautiful look at that okay and that's going with our salt don't be afraid if it looks like there's too much salt and pepper remember there's a lot of lamb you season there and all that kind of drips down into the meat unsalted or under salted meat to me you can't come back from that you can just season it afterwards because otherwise it just won't have a really balanced flavor so now what I'm going to do for this size my piece is about four pounds I'm going to stick this into my oven at 425 for thirty minutes and then I'm going to turn the heat down to 350 and let it cook for an additional hour or so it could take a little bit longer it just really depends on what the temperature that you prefer to eat your lamb at mine I like it about medium ish so around 155 degrees and Fahrenheit when I test it with a thermometer around 150 155 is perfect for me if you want a more rare than by all means cook it less it's a temperature thing so I'm gonna pop this in it for 25 or 30 minutes turn the heat down to 350 for an additional hour or until reaches my desired temperature about 150 degrees and I'll show you what it looks like what is there not as beautiful and get this out of here it was in the oven for a total of 30 minutes at 425 and then I turned the heat down to 350 and it was in there for an hour and 20 minutes exactly at 350 to reach an internal temperature of 150 I'm just going to loosely tent it I have it here on a board and I'm going to set that aside because I want to get going on making like a quick little gravy for it which is what my Nonna does but first I'm going to remove the rack because I don't need that now you see how much fat it renders out but you'll see I'm going to Rick get rid of the fat because I don't need it I'm gonna get rid of that and then I'm gonna keep back just a little tiny bit maybe a tablespoon or so but what I want is those bits you see those brown bits that is mega flavor so what I'm going to do is well my Nonna does I'm going to add in a glass of wine put this into the oven the oven remember it's at 350 still and I'm going to leave that in there for about 10-15 minutes however long it takes for those juices to get really nice and you'll reduce a bit but it gets nice and thick and that's what I want and I'm going to pop that in there and then sort of the juices from the lamb and the wine it all gets mixed together really really well but you know I'm actually going to grab some fresh some fresh rosemary leaves to add to that because that's all my not know what to do and that's what I'm going to do - just adding some rosemary in there little bits of leftover rosemary that we had from stuffing it because that's a no-no what do and that's what I do I'm going to pop this into the oven ten minutes or so while the lamb is resting and then I'll be it this was in the oven for about 15 minutes and look at that it's thickened it's got lots of flavor from the little bits from the bottom of the pan now that's the reason why instead of adding my wine sort of halfway through the cooking to the bottom of the pan I wait till the completely the end and then I can drain out all the fat because you can see how much fat was it left in there and now we'll just be completely powering I did slice some of my lamb and you can see it's really lovely and juicy now the very outside parts because they're thinner they're going to be sort of more on the medium to medium well side which personally I like but I wanted to show you right here that the inside this is what it looks like once you slice into it because all the garlic and the rosemary and as you get to the middle it'll have like your medium rare temperatures are really cooking it to about 150 degrees for me is perfect but that's just the way I like my lamb and again you can cook yours before oops I can find my spoon here it is you can cook yours less if that's what you preferred so I'm just going to take some of these really beautiful juices and I just like to spoon some right over the top and then you spoon the rest of it when people come over and well you can you can slice the whole thing up if you wanted to and have it ready my mouth is salivating because this is food of my childhood this is simple home food but I just remember eating I know Easter or sheep my none of those lamb a lot on Christmas Day you guys know on Christmas Eve we do seafood and Christmas Day we usually do like a baked pasta and a piece of meat whether it's a roast pork which is the punch out that was poor because I made for Christmas this year or you could do um lamb I'm just going to give a little slight little bite right here because I do actually have people coming over and I want a little bit of juice so it is so flavorful now garlic and rosemary really comes through beautifully but it's not overpowering because we sliced a garlic really thin it doesn't have that raw garlic flavor but time it's cooked all the way the garlic is gonna call it's kind of gone mild it's just a beauty I hope that you try this I hope that this sort of picks out any of the mystery and wonder about making lamb because I've got so many people requesting it and I just wanted to share with you a very basic and simple recipe that I know works every single time and you can adjust again in the temperature according to how you like you me if you want to cook a little bit less cook a less if you want to cook it more cooking more I like it somewhere in the middle I hope you enjoyed spending time with me good ol art in the kitchen and come for the full written recipe step by step as always I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a wonderful rest everyday and we'll back in you you

Channel: Laura in the Kitchen

Views: 435,123

Keywords: chef vitale, chef laura vitale, laura vitale, chef laura, roasted leg of lamb, leg of lamb, italian lamb, italian recipe, lamb recipes, how to cook lamb, roasted lamb, roast lamb, easy lamb, lamb, cook, meat, cooking, kitchen, bake, baked, broiled, cookware

Id: 8IkhFfJ_OPk

Length: 9min 13sec (553 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 08 2014