A Roast Leg of Lamb Dinner for my eldest daughter’s birthday
Hi there, dear friends :D Last weekend was my eldest daughter’s birthday and I made a Roast Leg of Lamb dinner for her as she loves lamb cooked in any way. The roast lamb turned out very moist, tender and flavourful, and I thought I had better write down the recipe here for future references as this was my best lamb recipe so far. When I cook, I don’t usually measure the exact amounts of the ingredients used, because I tend to go by intuition, putting in just “a little bit of this, a little bit of that.” LOL! Seeing as how my blog is a legacy for my children to refer to my recipes and health remedies when I am no longer around, I am posting my best Roast Leg of Lamb recipe here.
Yummy Roast Lamb Dinner
Roast Leg of Lamb (deboned)
Happyhomemaker88’s Roast Leg of Lamb Recipe
(Note – the recipe is for my deboned leg of lamb that weighed 2.3kg, so you adjust the marinade to fit the weight of your lamb leg accordingly) Prepping the leg of lamb :- 1) remove the thread/twine from the lamb, rinse the meat under tap water, and pat dry with paper kitchen towels. Place leg onto a baking tray. 2) open up the leg meat, skin or fat side down. With a sharp knife, made more cuts into the meat (without cutting all the way through) so that it is easier for the marinade to be absorbed into the meat…like this ===>
Make more cuts to open up the leg meat more
I learned this method when I saw a video on FoodTube where Jamie Oliver was demonstrating that, while I was waiting for my lamb to be deboned at the supermarket. 3) rub and massage two-thirds of the marinade (recipe below) thoroughly into the meat part of the lamb for a good 5 minutes. 4) rub the remaining 1/3 of the marinate into the fat side of the leg (where the skin was.)
Marinating the lamb – place the meat side down in tray for better absorption of the flavours
5) cover with cling film and refrigerate in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours. Overnight is even better (mine was marinated overnight.)
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Roast Lamb Marinade
Ingredients for the marinade :-
8 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tsp white pepper
2 tbsp sea salt or kosher salt
2 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsps wholegrain Dijon mustard
1 tsp dry Rosemary
2 tbsp chopped mint leaves
2 tbsp ginger juice
3 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsps Chinese Aged Shaoxing wine
3 tbsps melted butter
3 tbsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp baking soda
(Mix all ingredients above in a bowl)
*** Notes :-
1) The “oriental touch” to this roast lamb recipe is the ginger juice, Shaoxing wine and oyster sauce. The ginger juice, wine, olive oil and baking soda will help to tenderize the meat.
2) You can substitute some of the ingredients, like ===> sherry or brandy for the Chinese Shaoxing wine; or normal mustard for the whole grain Dijon mustard.
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Roasting the lamb :-
1) Two hours before roasting, remove the lamb from the refrigerator. When it is at room temperature, roll the meat back to form the leg of lamb and tie it with twine to keep its shape. I just tied it three times around the leg with 3 pieces of twine.
Tie a piece of twine around the leg of lamb at 3 places will do
2) Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius, and then place the lamb (without the baking tray it marinated in) on an oven grill/rack at the lower one-third level of the oven. Make sure there is a pan below to collect the oil and juice drippings from the lamb, and there is a space of at least 2 to 3 inches between the lamb and the pan. Reserve the rest of the marinade to prepare the lamb gravy.
3) If you see the top of the lamb browning too fast, use a piece of aluminium foil to cover the top loosely…so that the heat can still circulate around the lamb.
4) After 1 hour, reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees Celcius. Remove the aluminium foil now if you had one placed on the lamb.
5) My 2.3 kg lamb leg took about 1 hour 30 minutes to cook for a medium to well done roast. I inserted a meat thermometer which registered 70 degrees Celcius to test for doneness.
You can refer to THIS CHART to get a better idea of what temperature you are looking at to achieve the appropriate degree of doneness that you prefer for your meats.
6) When the lamb is cooked, remove it from the oven, place it on a serving platter and cover with an aluminium foil for at least 15 minutes. This is so that the lamb will still be juicy when served at dinner.
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To prepare the lamb gravy :-
I added 5 cups of water to the leftover lamb marinade, some oyster sauce, and a few tablespoons of real Beef Stock … and lots of black pepper. Taste the gravy and adjust seasonings to your preference, and then thicken the gravy with cornstarch.
Natural Beef Stock Concentrate I bought from iherb
Side dishes that I served with the Roast Leg of Lamb:-
Steamed Broccoli
Grilled Potatoes & Baby Carrots (with drippings from roasting lamb)
Steamed Corn
Butter Garlic Zucchini Shimeiji Mushroom Stirfry
Spicy Beef Sausage
** This recipe is dedicated to my eldest daughter, Nicolle <3
She will be getting married next year and she can refer to this recipe to cook a yummy roast lamb dinner for her husband in future! LOL! I would consider this recipe as one of my greater achievements together with my popular ===> Homemade Yummy Crispy Chinese Roast Pork Belly aka Siew Yoke aka Siao Bak 
Hope you like this Roast Lamb recipe! Bon Appetit!
With best wishes,
choesf :D
