Roast Leg of Lamb | Christine Cushing

Hi, I'm Christine Cushing and welcome to another helping of my quarantine kitchen, where we make easy, fun recipes that nourish the soul. Today it will be a Greek-style leg of

lamb

roast

ed in the oven, potatoes with lemon, you know, there will be oregano. and lots of olive oil, let's get ready to make this super simple and extremely homie amazing dish, so let me introduce you to this beautiful leg of

lamb

that weighs approximately 1.75 kilos, let's say it weighs between four and a half to five pounds with the bone. It looks really cool, this is the season we're in spring so it's a great time to make lamb and really every day can be a Sunday dinner because we're all home now so I wanted to give you that again.

That feels good, so this is the trick and this is the way, my dad. I'm going to start with my dad's way and then add my own little versions. The Greek way to make lamb is what we do is cut garlic cloves into slivers so don't even ask me how many cloves are here but you'll get the full recipe below where it's always so cut them into slivers like this because they actually They're going to get stuck in the leg of lamb, they're actually going to be punctured in there, so what we do is we take some sea salt, kosher salt, whatever you want and then throw in some of these pieces of garlic slices and hit it with a little crushed garlic.

Black, I kind of exaggerate it here, mixing everything up and there, what the hell I'm going to spend a little time. I'm improvising this just in terms of what happens there because I love doing that and now what's happening? If this happens, I'm going to make some little incisions and I'm going to stick these little cloves of garlic right there so you can see that making an incision just turns it around and I can see my dad doing this years ago, I can imagine. him, I'm not going to be too picky with this just giving it a little twist and then that seasoned garlic is going to go in there and really flavor the meat as you grill some of those on I like to distribute them evenly on each side.

Let's go to the other side and here, as many as you want. I mean, actually, this is a pretty small leg of lamb that, actually, greased, is about the size they like. It's younger, it's more delicate, it's softer, let me do one more here on the leg, okay, jam, so it's got garlic studded all over it enough, so what I'm going to do now is start creating a kind of a little layer of flavor on the outside, let me draw your attention to this baking sheet, so the shallower baking sheet you use, the darker the meat will get because the steam will actually escape and you'll get a nice caramelization .

The deeper your pan, the more steam there will be, so again it's totally up to you, so let's get ready here with a little lemon flavor, I mean, I don't even have to say it anymore, although I'm going to do something else. a little bit different, I'm taking my little grater here and I'm going to make strips of lemon zest to give it a little more texture and this is going to go on top, it's going to go on top of the potatoes, did I mention we're? making potatoes also

roast

lamb and potatoes, I mean, there's nothing better than that, okay, so they're going to be set aside and now the juice of maybe half a lemon or a whole lemon, I don't want it to be super lemony, this isn't about the lemon itself, but it's about introducing that flavor because it reduces the fat, so I'm going to start with the juice of half a lemon.

Oh, but this is a pretty scarce lemon. This is a good example. looking at this recipe it says juice of half a lemon, I mean, no two lemons have the same amount of juice, so this is where you have to come in as the master of your domain, your kitchen, and you have to know how much I should use. I would say that the juice of one lemon is good with a little olive oil, not too much, because the lamb has a good amount of fat, so I don't want to put too much and now a little.

Of controversy, I love using this on my lamb. Turns out it's pettimesi, but timezi is just grape must cooked in Italian vincotto. I love using it with lamb. I'm going to add a little bit, not too much, this will just introduce a little bit. a little bit of sweetness but it will also give my lamb an amazing color and you'll see what happens right away it will just introduce a little bit of sugar it really tastes like grapes if you've ever had it it's like a concentration of grapes. As opposed to, say, balsamic vinegar, which is sweeter, spicier, it's much more in the center, it's so good, so should we spread some all over a little bit on top?

Look, I'm going to make sure you get it all in the nooks and crannies and give it a little massage here beautiful, making sure it has a little bit of glaze around this lamb, okay, pretty good right now, where are we going to go? So I have this salt, this salt. and pepper I'm going to leave it aside because I want to use it on top. I also have my lemon zest. I'm going to leave it aside. I'm going for thyme and rosemary. For me, lamb needs a lot of fresh herbs. in fat they will probably just use oregano, as you know, but for me, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, mint, dill, I mean, you can go on and on, if I wanted to make this salt deeper, I would use what they call in Provence the south of French provence herb which has like six or seven herbs, so here comes some thyme.

I'm going to keep it thick, I'm not going to make it too thin like this and again, the quintessential Greek dish is not nonsense, it's simple, it's the easiest way you can do something, so I'm not going to worry about this at all, so here I go with seasoned salt and pepper from a height so it's evenly distributed, I'm not going to go too crazy with this, which a lot of people do, so let's give it a little bit of rosemary and thyme combination and let's not forget the oregano a little bit like that oh , I can perfectly imagine this dish, give it a little whistle, turn it over and repeat the salt and pepper combination, my only meat with I guess is Greek and the amount of salt is a bit too much salt even now that I always go to Greece I have to say let's take it easy with the salt, so you want it, you know, to balance the flavor, but you don't want it to be so pronounced that I ran out of pepper. so I'm going to add some pepper again with my beautiful herbs.

You can't have enough fresh herbs. You just can't have enough of them. In my opinion, we are doing well and I am not going to be picky about this. a little less oregano because it's dry like this oh honey, does it look good? I'm going to turn this around now. Did someone say potatoes? Of course, you have to eat roast potatoes if you're going to go to the trouble of making lamb. So here I go with just some whole potatoes that I'm going to throw in right there when I roast them whole like this, they'll be a little creamier on the inside because they're steamed with their little jackets on. so again it's totally up to you, I'll leave a lot of this to you.

We're going to drizzle with a little olive oil. The lamb will get fat so I don't want to go back to rubbing them too much with a little salt on the potatoes now I have to say something about when you go to Greece, if you have ever been to Greece, even if you are a three Michelin star chef, change the whole paradigm of how lamb is cooked, because in Greece lamb is cooked slowly until it falls off the bone it's almost like we're replicating the spit, you know where it's cooked and it's just that, that's why they call it lukumi, which means basically, uh, like a Turkish delight, you know, it's like it's so tender, so soft.

It just falls and melts in your mouth now this is where I leave it to you. If you want it to be nice and soft and fall off the bone, you're going to cook it a little bit longer, so now let me. add my lemon zest oh this is going to be incredibly exciting you'll see how I'm letting it flow freely. I'm going to add some bay leaves here, everything will add a little bit of flavor, just to make sure. That my potatoes have a little olive oil is not worth much and I'm going to keep an eye on this, I could add just a little bit of water but I'm not going to do that now I'm going to see what's happening in the oven and the oven at 350 degrees is where I am setting it to Fahrenheit around 170 degrees Celsius.

I'm choosing here to start lower and I'm going to increase the temperature towards the end because then I can control that. color, so this is a little bit fundamental opposite, but it works very well, voila, that's all that was in the first phase of the oven, probably an hour and a half or so, an hour and 20 minutes exactly, this is from what I'm talking about, yes, I had a microphone. I would drop it. Look at that beautiful amazing color. I'm starting to like running in place. Do you see how petimesi? How beautiful it is, by the way, one of the oldest natural sweeteners.

You see. This amazing color is. like I roasted it for an hour and 20 minutes, everything was at 350 degrees, but you're going to get all those details, now it's time to try it, check this out, so this is the leg that's going to cook the fastest, this is the part. which I always choose because it's absolutely beautiful, it's the most tender right away, this is a handheld situation, do you see that golden crimson color, that's what I'm talking about, such a perfect round flavor it's wonderful, so for me, what did I cook it? So the leg is nice and tender and almost falling off the bone and there's still a little bit of pink left.

If you want to do it completely Greek style, you want to cook it for a 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 what happens there , so with the skin they vaporize inside and absorb all this incredible flavor. What I'm talking about is a weekend Sunday dinner that could be any day because we're all at home Greek style. Thank you very much for joining me again in the quarantine kitchen to share this beautiful trip to Greece with an incredible roast chicken leg. lamp please give me a thumbs up share let me know what's going on in your kitchen I want challenges I want requests until next time from the quarantine kitchen thank you very much I hope you are well