Easy Easter Roast Leg of Lamb

Classic. Leg of lamb. Roast lamb and potatoes all in one tray. This is an absolute wonder. It really is. It's perfect Sunday roast material but can be for any day of the week. It's one of those great dishes where you put it all in the oven, you go for a walk, you know it's going to work, it's not going to be a problem at all and you've got all your potatoes in a tray, your lamb roasting across the top, rosemary and garlic, all the flavours of the lamb going in the potatoes. Super, super simple and the house smells delicious. It's like Bologna potatoes. Potatoes with onions and stock. Yep. Lamb across the top, rosemary and garlic, away you go. Yeah. So all you need really, apart from your ingredients of your leg of lamb, your rosemary and your onions and your potatoes and your garlic, you need a big baking tray like a roasting tin. So we've greased that. Yes. And then what we're going to do is we're going to use a cake tray, so a, you know, cooling rack and we've got these that the legs come off because that's going to go over the top but if you don't have one of those you could use your oven, oven shelf. You can use your oven shelf, yep. The deal is, what we'll do is the potatoes sit in the bottom and the lamb then cooks across the top and all the juices go into the potatoes. It's fantastic. But my very clever husband, we've done this very differently for years, both of us do it slightly differently, but you, because you're the chef and you know, you do a special scoring thing on the lamb. Yeah. Which makes it. Because lamb you want to have crispy bits. Yes. You want the bits in the middle which are cooked nicely. A leg of lamb like this which is just over two kilos will take about an hour and 30 minutes. Yeah. So that's plenty of time for those potatoes to cook underneath. But you should score on an angle quite deeply. And what is that, what's the weight of this lamb? This is 2.2 kilos. And this will feed loads of you. Well it'll feed loads of you and of course my father would be very happy because afterwards he'll be able to make his leftover lamb fritters. Yeah. This is a crowd pleaser. It really is and if you like the ideas and you like John's tips then please like and subscribe. While you start to post that I'm just going to cut these little bits of rosemary into pieces. You're going to cut them. How big? Nice. So like that and we're going to sort of post them in. So I sort of used to post them into the skin. Like. So I'd make a little hole like that and then squinch him in. And then you'd get like a garlic hit and they don't taste horribly and horrible and acrid because they're beautiful and they're roasted slowly and they're sweet and smooshy delicious. Sounds good. So you'll keep on posting that garlic. I'll keep on posting. I'm going to do little tiny bits of rosemary. This one's got flowers on them and there's no reason for you not to eat the flowers. The flowers are edible. Now it is actually said that that is how the name rosemary came about. Is that apparently Mary put her cloak across the top of the bush and Mary's cloak was blue and it turned the flowers into blue flowers therefore the rose of Mary. That's a lovely little. Whether it's true or not nobody really knows. Church story. It's a lovely church story yeah. So we want little bits of rosemary here because the rest of the rosemary we're going to use on the actual cake rack itself the trivet to give lots more flavour. So there for you my darling. Thank you my darling. To post away as well. I love that you post things in here. The thing is that as this leg of lamb cooks the the garlic will melt away so will the rosemary all the flavours will go in and go into the lamb and then we've got to really get the sort of flavour to go backwards and forwards as well. So the potatoes are really important taking up as much flavour as we possibly can. We don't want to waste that lovely lamb juice. I've got some sliced potatoes already here. I'm going to use a mandolin and there's no reason why you can't do this by hand but we I prefer a mandolin. I just find it a lot easier and all I do is just take them and just slice them very good thickness. John just uses the mandolin without the guard. But there is a trick with it with the mandolin and that is to do to use a fork but I'll show that in a second. Yes. So you take the drop those in a little bit of water because they've got a bit of starch and we don't want them to be too starchy but if you've worried about your mandolin you don't have your guard take a fork stick the fork in that and then use the fork and then your The guard is actually in our drawer just to let you know. Actually it's in the box. But chefs I've never met a chef that uses the guard. Well I think everybody that's ever used one of these before will know that they are quite dangerous. Yeah that's it but they're faster than a knife or you can use the um the electric version you know like a Maggi mix your favourite thing. Because we've got two kilos of lamb. Yeah. We're going to use exactly the same quantity of potatoes. So if you'd actually do it that way you always know that you know for two kilos that's going feed eight to ten people. Yeah. Mix those potatoes up with that and then we'll drain that water off. Potatoes back to our big tray. Yep. Which is greased already. We're going to drop the potatoes in and then keep the bowl. Yeah. In go the onions. Yeah. In go our garlic because you're putting some garlic in. I am. And then a really good amount of salt and pepper and our kettle's just boiled. Yep. And we have a stock cube. One of these stock cubes. You can use any one but these are. We use these in our little family don't we? Do it all the time. They're pretty good. And then. And that's just chicken stock but you could use veg, lamb whatever you've got doesn't matter. And we want about 500 mils of liquid in here. Lisa's going to mix that stock cube in. So I've got two kilos of potatoes. Yeah. I've got about 300 grams of onions 500 mils of stock going on and then we've got 200 grams of butter. So is that like three onions? That's yeah three big size onions. Three large onions. And then just drop your butter in randomly into your potatoes. Add your onions across the top and then in Lisa fashion we give the whole thing what she likes to call a squinch. A squinch and a smoosh. So you just really sort of mix in the onions. Oh hello escapees. Come on back you come. In you come. You're going back to the oven and then you don't push it down. You want them to be nice and. You don't want them to be packed. No. You want them to be loose. Yeah. To get those bits of air in so you'll get some nice bits where the lamb juice will go into those potatoes. And the edges should be nice and crispy. So it's quite indulgent. Then add your stock. Goes across the top. Here's the important bit. This cake right now sits across the top. Rosemary onto the top and then take our lamb and put our lamb across the top. I mean that's beautiful as it is isn't it? I mean that's really pretty. Well we think that's pretty don't we? I think that's gorgeous. Yeah. Probably a good sort of 50 mils of oil. I'm just using light olive oil here. And remember that this the rosemary will turn brown. It will burn. So don't be like it because it looks so pretty like this. When it comes to the table you've got the lovely flavours of the rosemary. You probably take your flowers out. Take your some salt. Oh yum. Just to make it nice and crispy. Remember our potatoes are already done. Yeah. And then what you do now is you get all the family together. Get your walking boots on and you go out for a walk because this is going to go in the oven now for about an hour and 20 minutes. What number? So now 180 degrees. An hour and 20 minutes. Into the oven it goes. Look at that. Oh. Right you ready for a walk? Yeah. Get your boots on. Rory. No don't tell her that. Our lamb has been in the oven for an hour and 25 minutes. The kitchen smells amazing. I know we took an extra five minutes because we probed it. It wasn't quite there. 52 to 56 degrees for your lamb. That's a good temperature. Yeah. Really good one of those little probes. They're fantastic. Yeah. Are you okay? Oh am I okay? Oh yeah. Look at that. Crispy potatoes, crispy lamb, rosemary, garlic. I'm just going to carve this lamb a little bit. Look at this. Oh yeah. Oh my goodness look at this. Look at this. Smooshy, delicious, good lamb and guess who's arrived. Look at that crispy potato. Happy? Classic roast lamb, potatoes, rosemary and garlic.