Name: Leg of Lamb Recipe
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 90 min
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon Cooking oil or lard; 3 lb Leg of lamb; 2 teaspoons Salt; 1 teaspoon Black pepper; 2 head Onion (sliced); 3 cloves Garlic (diced); 1 sprig Thyme; 2 cups Water; 2 cups Red wine

Bored of the same old meals or simply up to some excitement? Let’s roast a leg of lamb to open up endless possibilities!

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Versatility in the kitchen is a blessing, especially if we need to cook with the same main ingredients.

With subtle changes, we can create completely different dishes and provide a totally different experience. Thinking out of the box is really hard for many people and if we aren’t forced to get out of our comfort zone by some external force or by of our own nagging, we don’t necessary move out of it.

Interestingly, our body is equipped with a fail-safe, in case we get too much into something. It’s called boredom. We don’t just get bored of situations, books, or movies but we get bored of food too, and this is our body’s method to make sure we eat diversity and all the necessary nutrition that we need.

Unfortunately, our body was designed to forage on the offerings of the paradise and eat, but one apple seems to really threw us off balance. Once we started agriculture and a bit later fast-food restaurants chains, our diet changed drastically or rather hasn’t changed at all.

We can eat the same food over and over again metabolically while we eat completely different meals physically. Reducing the basic ingredients to the bare minimum needed while at the same time expanding the menu options is not less than a work of a genius but unfortunately, we don’t really benefit from such marvels of food engineering.

Many times, during the Middle Ages, people didn’t have a choice of what to eat but they had to eat what was available. Unfortunately, this meant that if hunger didn’t kill them, scurvy most likely did until at last potato was introduced to the old Continent and its vitamin C content saved the lives of many.

It turns out that French fries are healthy after all or at least prevents us from getting curvy. Unfortunately, we still have to survive heart attacks though, but that’s a story for later.

Although it seems like, there is only one way to cook leg of lamb, in reality, roasting lamb does not only differ with the spices and herbs we use with it, or the side dish the season offers, but also the cooking temperature and method.

We can prepare lamb just like we do with beef and make it well done, medium or rare. All three will provide not only a different texture but different flavor for all the seasons throughout the year.

How to prepare leg of lamb?

After about 70 minutes of roasting, we reach the inner meat temperature of 145°F / 63°C, the lamb is good to go but this state is far from the meat being well done. It’s ready to be served for those who like their meat juice and fresh, but for those who like a more developed flavor need more time.

At about 130 minutes and internal temperature of 180°F / 83°C the lamb is cooked through with no pink going on anywhere, yet still juicy and it comes with deep fully developed flavor.

Somewhere between the two, about 80 – 90 minutes in the 350°F / 180°C oven lies the medium meat, that is not that pink, yet not that developed but still we haven’t even started about the different spices and herbs we can use and completely change the dish every time we put it on our table.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon / 15ml Cooking oil or lard
3lb / 1.5kg Leg of lamb
2 teaspoon / 10g Salt
1 teaspoon / 1g Black pepper
2 head / 300g Onion (sliced)
3 cloves / 10g Garlic (diced)
1 sprig / 1g Thyme
2 cups / 500ml Water
2 cup / 500m Red wine

How to make Leg of lamb

Rub the leg with salt and pepper then sprinkle over the sliced onion and diced garlic. Add the thyme too. Some like to pierce holes into the meat and stick herbs into there, others just make some deep cuts.
Pour some water underneath then place into the middle rack of a 360°F / 180°C preheated oven for 60 minutes. Spoon on some liquid from the bottom of the pan 2 -3 times.
After about 70 minutes, the legs should be ready to be consumed as it’s internal temperature should reach 145°F / 63°C but we can roast it more to develop more mature flavors. Optionally we can add a bit of red wine to it too.