How to prepare the perfect lamb roast
BY READERS DIGEST
1st Jan 2015 Recipes
Learn how to cook a delicious lamb roast with this fool proof recipe. Great for Easter Sunday, or any Sunday for that matter.
Choosing your meat
Lamb is a tender meat with a distinctive flavour and aroma. Mutton, the term for meat from older sheep, has a stronger flavour and is tougher than lamb. It is rarely available today as people generally prefer lamb forits tenderness and lighter taste.
Welsh lamb is a particular speciality, valued for its sweet fresh flavour which comes out well when it is roasted.
Lamb is light red in colour. It should look fresh and moist with creamy-white, firm fat. Joints should have a plump layer of meat under a thin, pliable skin with a light sheen.
This recipe uses a saddle of lamb. A large prime joint made up of both loins and cut from the best end to the legs, with the tail left on is ideal.
Butchers require a few days’ notice to dress a saddle. The meat is skinned and the cleaned kidneys are skewered and tied to the end of the loins, with the slit tail wrapped round them.
A saddle weighs about 3.62 kg/8 lb and makes an ideal, if expensive, large roast. Perfect for special occasions, like Easter.
Image via Food and Wine
The recipe: Saddle of lamb with wine sauce
Serves 8
Preparation: 20 minutes
Marinating: 12 hours
Cooking time: 3 hours
Oven: 180°C/350°F/gas 4
Preparation: 20 minutes
Marinating: 12 hours
Cooking time: 3 hours
Oven: 180°C/350°F/gas 4
Ingredients:
- 2.8 kg/6 lb saddle of lamb
- 12 sprigs rosemary
- 50 g/2 oz dripping or lard
- 25 g/1 oz flour
- 75 ml/5 tablespoons
- Redcurrant jelly
- Salt and black pepper
- 1 carrot
- 2 onions
- 150ml water
- 3 parsley sprigs
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 peppercorns
- 2 cloves
- 1 blade mace
- 60 ml / 4 tablespoons malt vinegar
- 900 ml / 1pt red wine
- 60 ml / 4 tablespoons medium sherry
- 60 ml / 4 tablespoons brandy
Method:
- Chop the carrot and onions finely and place them in a pan with the water. Add the herbs, spices and vinegar. Boil for 30 minutes, then leave to cool. Stir the red wine, sherry and brandy into the marinade.
- Pour into a dish large enough to hold the lamb. Add the lamb, spoon the marinade over, cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
- Drain the lamb, reserving the marinade.
- Make small incisions in the lamb and add the rosemary sprigs. Heat the dripping or lard in a roasting tin in a preheated oven at 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Add the lamb and roast.
- Baste the lamb every now and then with the cooking fat and juices.
- Transfer the lamb to a heated serving platter, cover with foil and keep warm. Pour off any excess fat from the roasting tin, leaving a thin covering in the bottom.
- Stir in the flour, then cook for 2 minutes, scraping the residue off the tin. Gradually pour in the reserved marinade, stirring continuously, and bring to the boil.
- Reduce the heat and stir in the redcurrant jelly, then simmer the sauce for 5 minutes, stirring often. Taste the sauce for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary.
- Bring to a full boil, cook for 1 minute, then strain the sauce into a heated sauceboat and serve it with the lamb.
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