Roasted Lamb!

Two posts in one night - what is up with that! I have 3 other recipes that I am going to blog this coming weekend because it covers one of my favorite cooking methods - Sous Vide! I'm going to blog about Sous Vide cooking later in the week since it will be a very very long post and I need to be somewhat awake to write about it.

Yesterday I decided to try this recipe from a cookbook that I recently acquired at Harbor Books in Friday Harbor. The book is called, "Pure Simple Cooking" by Diana Henry. My wife and I make it an annual event event to visit Friday Harbor for New Years and we always check out this local bookstore. The owner of the store, Keith is also a foodie and he always suggest great cookbooks for me to purchase and try. I ended up taking care of my addiction spending $100 on 3 cookbooks on this last trip. I promise my wife that I would get rid of some cookbooks that I didn't use anymore. I managed to find 5 cookbooks that I haven't touched in awhile and gave them away to Goodwill for a good cause.

I love lamb for the flavor and sweetness of the meat. Some people complained about the wild gamey taste but if you cook it right and removed most of the fat, you won't have that taste.

Ingredients for the stuffing are as followed:
-6 oz of soft goat cheese, crumbled
-6 oz sun dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained
-2 oz of fresh basil leaves, torn
-1 clove garlic, crushed
-3 tbsp olive oil

I purchased my boneless leg of lamb from Costco. Price is $3.99/lb and I usually find one between 3 and 4lbs. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Open the lamb and butterfly it so that you can roll it up easily. Season the flesh with salt and pepper. Spread the stuffing into the lamb and roll it up. Tie it up with good kitchen twine. I added an herb crust to the lamb that wasn't part of the recipe that consisted of 8 cloves of garlic, olive oil, black pepper, French sea salt, and fresh rosemary.

Cook for 15 minutes and then decreased the oven to 375 degrees. The recipes calls for another 50 minutes but I would recommend an additional 30 minutes. I like my lamb medium rare where the temperature of the meat is approximately between 130 and 135 degrees. It's hard to do since it is generally more well done on the outside of the lamb. I used the convection mode in the oven this time around and I wasn't as happy with the roasting. I should have dropped the temperature down to 225-250 degrees and let it slow cook in the oven for a more even cooking. I'll explain later why Sous Vide cooking is so much better!  My suggestion is pull the lamb out at about 125-130 degrees and then let it rest for 15 minutes. The lamb will warm up inside an additional 10 degrees before eating.  

You can also make a really nice mushroom gravy with the drippings from the pan with red wine.

Enjoy!