Greek Style Roast Leg of Lamb

This is one to really impress your dinner guests when they come for a Greek meal. The house will smell just wonderful as they arrive. Lamb is the traditional meal on Easter Sunday in Greece, so a possibility there for your Easter dinner.

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 Leg of lamb

I Lemon

1 Table spoon Olive oil

Fresh rosemary, thyme and oregano. ( 1tsp of each dried if not fresh)

Salt and pepper

Method

It’s always a good idea to season the meat first and leave at room temperature for an hour or so to get the flavours flowing.

Heat the oven to 170C / 325F / Gas mark 3

Make shallow cuts in the meat and rub the dried herbs well in or push small pieces into the cuts if you have the fresh.

Pour the juice of the lemon and the olive oil over the meat and season again with salt and pepper.

Roast for 20 minutes per 500grams plus a further 20 minutes with a loose foil cover.

Keep a close eye incase the meat should start to dry or darken too quickly and baste with a little water and lemon juice if necessary.

For the last 20 minutes remove the foil allowing the surface to brown a little.

Don’t forget to cover the meat with foil again and leave it to stand for 10 minutes when you take it out of the oven. This will let the juices settle again and stop it drying out.

A nice addition to this would be to push slices of garlic into the cuts with the herbs for an explosion of taste.

As for gravy?

Greek cuisine is not big on gravy, so why not add some more lemon juice to the meat juices left in the tin.

This could be served with rice or potatoes roasted with garlic.

Carrots in Sweet Wine

This is such a lovely accompaniment to the lamb and so simple to do I had to list it right here.

Ingredients

500 Grams carrots

250ml Sweet Greek Red Wine e.g. Imiglykos

50 grams butter

15ml Greek honey

Salt & pepper.

Method

Firstly melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the sliced carrots until they have a good covering of butter. Add the wine and slowly bring to the boil stirring in the honey. Simmer until the carrots are just tender and remove from the remaining liquid. This can then be poured over the carrots as they are served.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy.