'The warm spices and sweet, tangy marinade work brilliantly with lamb and are all rich, comforting flavours that are really familiar to me,' says cook Meliz. 'This roast will make a magical showstopper for the festivities.'
Raised in a Turkish Cypriot household in London, Meliz is a self-taught cook and recipe developer who is passionate about her foodie heritage. Her simple, flavour-packed recipes celebrate the rich diversity of Cypriot cuisine.Known as @melizcooks on Instagram, she also has a sizeable foodie following
See more of Meliz Berg’s recipes
Meliz Berg
Raised in a Turkish Cypriot household in London, Meliz is a self-taught cook and recipe developer who is passionate about her foodie heritage. Her simple, flavour-packed recipes celebrate the rich diversity of Cypriot cuisine.Known as @melizcooks on Instagram, she also has a sizeable foodie following
See more of Meliz Berg’s recipes
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Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions
1 cinnamon stick
1 large leg of lamb, bone-in (about 2.2-2.6kg)
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp dried oregano
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1½ tsp sea salt flake
1 x 30g pack mint
5 tbsp pomegranate molasses
2 tbsp clear honey
zest of 2 clementines, plus 60ml freshly squeezed juice
500ml chicken stock (made using 1 stock cube) - use gluten-free stock, if required
50g coriander (leaves and stalks)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
80g pomegranate seeds
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Make the spice paste and rub it into the lamb several hours ahead, cover and chill. Remove from the fridge 30-45 minutes before roasting.
Brush a large, deep roasting tin with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, then thickly slice the onions into rounds and lay the slices flat in the middle of the tin, adding the cinnamon stick – the onions will serve as a trivet for the lamb.
Grind the coriander seeds fairly finely in a pestle and mortar and add them to a small bowl along with the cumin, paprika, dried oregano, garlic and 1¼ teaspoons of flaky sea salt.
Finely chop the leaves from a couple of the mint sprigs and add them to the bowl along with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of the pomegranate molasses, 1 tablespoon of honey, the zest from one of the clementines and 30ml of the clementine juice. Mix everything together to create a loose paste.
Lightly score three long, diagonal incisions across the top of the lamb and sit it in the tin on top of the onion slices. Using clean hands (or wearing gloves), gently rub the spice paste all over the lamb so that it embeds itself within the shallow cuts you made across the skin. Season the lamb with some cracked black pepper, then allow it to sit and come up to room temperature for half an hour, and for the spice paste to infuse the lamb. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C, gas 3½.
Pour the stock into the tray around the lamb and cover the tray with one or two very large pieces of foil, creating enough space over the lamb so that the foil doesn’t stick to the meat and steam can generate within the tent. Pinch the foil securely and tightly all around the edges of the tray and place in the oven, on the bottom shelf.
Slow-roast the lamb for 5 hours, basting every 2 hours, and always ensuring to re-cover the tray tightly with the foil each time you do. Turn the heat up to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4 for the last hour, then 20 minutes before the end, baste again and remove the foil for the remaining cooking time.
Once the lamb is ready, the meat should be almost falling off the bone. Take the tray out of the oven and spoon over the basting juices one final time, but do not put the tray back in the oven. Cover the tray with foil for 10 minutes to let the lamb rest and soak up the juices while you make the mint and coriander sauce.
Very finely chop the remaining mint leaves and all of the coriander then add the herbs to a small bowl with the remaining clementine zest, 3 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses and 1 tablespoon of honey, the remaining 30ml of clementine juice and ¼ teaspoon sea salt flakes, as well as the balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.
Serve the lamb on a platter, adding the onions from the roasting tin if you wish. Spoon the mint and coriander sauce over and scatter with the pomegranate seeds.
For the perfect roast lamb, we recommend seasoning the surface of the meat, and then searing it, especially fat side down in a pan before roasting. Why bother with searing? Contrary to some stories, searing is less about locking in moisture, and all about improving the flavour!
And when you have a gorgeous cut, like a rack of lamb, you can cook it the good ol' Gordon Ramsay way—which is to say, lightly pan-sear it first, then baste it with an herby, garlicky butter, and finally finish it off in the oven until it's still pink and juicy in the middle. It comes out perfectly every time.
Slow cooking in liquid transforms tougher cuts of lamb into fork-tender meat. Neck, shoulder and belly, either diced or as whole joints, are the best cuts for slow cooking and need to be cooked for at least 2 hrs at 150°C to soften the meat.
"Browning, or caramelizing, meat before putting it into a slow cooker isn't 100 percent necessary, but it is well worth the effort for the most flavorful and full-bodied end result," he says. "The caramelized surface of the meat will lend rich flavor and color to the finished dish."
Before you begin the cooking process, be sure to remove your lamb from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. This helps to ensure that the lamb cooks evenly and that you get an accurate temperature reading.
Some cuts of lamb work better for slow cooking than others, so it's important to choose carefully. The best cuts of lamb for slow-cooking are the shoulder, leg, and shank. These cuts have more fat and connective tissue and tend to be tougher.
The meat turns out to be very tender if cooked low and slow in the oven. These cuts get even more tender if braised in some sort of liquid. The center cuts of lamb — loin, ribs, and breast — are naturally tender, so they do better with quick-cooking methods.
If you have an extra 10 minutes, it's often worth browning the meat before slow cooking it. Browning or searing the meat in a hot pan caramelises its surface, which can give the final dish a richer, deeper flavour and colour. The high temperatures also help to render the fat on the surface of your lamb.
Fresh rosemary, fresh garlic, lemon zest, black pepper, and salt are simple but amazing flavors that pair amazingly with the lamb! Each of these ingredients adds its unique warmth and depth to enhance the flavor of the dish.
Whether boneless or bone-in, the perfect leg of lamb should be either oven-roasted until blushing pink on the inside (with an internal temp around 130°F) or roasted long and slow for several hours until the meat is very tender and falls apart to internal temp around 175°F (I often use the slow cooker for that).
Washing beef, pork, lamb, or veal before cooking it is not recommended. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices can be spread to other foods, utensils, and surfaces. We call this cross-contamination. Some consumers think they are removing bacteria and making their meat or poultry safe.
It's not really necessary to sear your roast before cooking, but caramelizing the surface gives the cut an incredible depth of flavor, enhanced with the complex layers of nutty caramel and coffee-like bitterness that meat-lovers find delicious.
You create a Maillard reaction when you sear the lamb, which is a chemical reaction between the amino acids and the sugars in the meat. This reaction adds an extra roasted layer of flavor to the meat and seals in the juices, keeping it moist during the cooking process.
The dry heat of roasting is best for tender cuts of lamb, like the leg, rack, and loin. If you'd like to roast a cut like a lamb shoulder, go for a long, slow roast. If you're cooking a bone-in leg, keep in mind that because of the thicker and thinner portions of the cut you'll get a range of doneness.
Introduction: My name is Arielle Torp, I am a comfortable, kind, zealous, lovely, jolly, colorful, adventurous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 45 mins
