Herb Crusted Roast Lamb

Ingredients

To make this seriously tasty lamb roast, you’ll need the following main ingredients:

• Lamb: The star ingredient! I recommend using deboned lamb leg / boneless leg of lamb, which is often available already rolled and tied at the supermarket or from your butcher. If it’s not ready-rolled, it’s simple enough to tie it up yourself with butcher’s twine or kitchen twine.
• Fresh Herbs: Lamb loves fresh herbs. I like to use a mixture of parsley, chives and thyme with a little lemon or orange zest to make the herb crust (or Gremolata). You can alter the herb mixture to suit your tastes. As the crust is fresh rather than roasted, you can use soft herbs like basil or even mint if you like. You’ll also need some Dijon mustard to stick the crust to the lamb. Note: I use a food processor for the parsley, but I always cut the chives by hand.
• Roast Vegetables: Lamb is glorious with Mediterranean flavours, so I like to serve it with some roasted potatoes, red onions, tomatoes, garlic and olives, all seasoned with oregano. I like to roast plenty of garlic with the vegetables so that people can add as much or as little to their lamb as they like.
• Olive oil, salt and pepper: Roast your lamb and vegetables with plenty of good quality olive oil for the best flavour.

Instructions

Roasts might seem intimidating, but in fact, they are one of the easiest of all meals to cook, great for feeding a crowd and the oven does most of the work. There are really just a few main stages:

1. PREPARE: The first step is to take the lamb out of the fridge at least 45 minutes to an hour before you want to cook. Allowing the lamb to come up to room temperature means it will cook evenly. Heat up your oven to 170°C (350°F) Fan forced (because we are cooking multiple dishes at once, we want that air moving the heat around). Chop up all your vegetables and toss with olive oil and oregano. Rub the lamb all over with olive oil and brown well in a skillet or frying pan.
2. ROAST: Roast the lamb and the vegetables for 60-75 minutes, until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat reads 55°C (130°F) for medium-rare, or 60°C (140°F) for medium-well. Tent the vegetables with foil if they are browning too much. Trust me when I say a digital thermometer or meat thermometer is absolutely life-changing! There’s a link to one like mine in the recipe card.
3. REST: Remove the lamb from the oven, cover with foil and then a couple of tea towels and rest for 15-20 minutes. Resting the meat allows it to finish cooking and redistributes the juices making for a gloriously tender roast.
4. MAKE THE CRUST: While the lamb is resting or roasting, chop your herbs nice and fine and mix with the lemon zest. When the lamb has rested, rub it all over with Dijon mustard, then roll it in the beautiful green herbs.
5. SERVE: All that’s left to do is to transfer everything to a serving platter, slice up your lamb and tuck in. Don’t forget plenty of mint sauce on the side!