Roast lamb cooking
For any special occasion where there is a family gathering, serving a roast dinner is always popular with all parties. During the spring and especially at Easter it is traditional to serve lamb as this is the prime time of the year for its production. Roast lamb cooking can consist of numerous parts of the animal, but the most popular is either a leg or a rack of lamb.
The rack is a cut from the rib segment of the lamb. A traditional rack will consist of eight ribs and is usually served with rib intact. Cooking a rack of lamb is not as difficult as many people may fear. You can get your butcher to ‘french’ the lamb; this means he will trim it to reveal the ribs and so it will look like the traditional rack of lamb. You can do this yourself but if you are unsure it is perhaps best to allow an expert to do it for you. Roast lamb cooking as a rack is a more attractive way of cooking and looks good on the plate, but there a few things you will need to do during the preparation and cooking to ensure you end up with a perfect result.
To season the lamb before it goes into the oven you can simply use salt and pepper, but for something a little more interesting you can try a mustard and parsley breadcrumb crust. Combine the ingredients so that you have a paste and rub it all over the meat prior to putting it into the oven. Alternatively, when roast lamb cooking, for a more pungent meat you can use a garlic rub by crushing the garlic to a paste, mixing it with some rosemary and covering your lamb in this.
If you would rather not do a rack you can cook a more traditional roast leg of lamb. This can be a little simpler if you prefer something you can throw in the oven with very little preparation. For greater ease, buy a boneless leg of lamb as it will be easier for you to carve. The lamb will come tied, so untie it and make a few scores in the fat on top of the leg, into the slits that you have made insert some peeled garlic and sprigs of rosemary. This will flavour the meat during the cooking process. In the bottom of the tin put a few carrots and onions, these will flavour the gravy. Drizzle with some olive oil and make sure the lamb gets a good covering; this will stop the meat drying out too much. Your roast lamb cooking time will depend on whether or not you like your meat pink, but generally you should aim for twenty minutes per pound plus an extra twenty minutes.
Once the lamb has been removed from the oven you should leave it to rest while you prepare the gravy. Remove some of the fat from the bottom of the roasting tin; you will want some though so don’t remove it completely. Blend the juices from the meat with some flour to thicken it, and then strain it.
