Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce

Storing and Planning Ahead

Refrigerated for 3 days. Best cold in sandwiches rather than reheated.

Making Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce

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1. Leave the lamb at room temperature 1 hour before it goes in the oven.

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2. Make slits all over the leg with a small knife and push a sliver of garlic and a piece of rosemary into each.

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3. Rub with the oil, salt and pepper.

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4. Lay the onion slices in a roasting tin as a trivet and set the lamb on top.

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5. Roast at 220°C / 430°F fan / 240°C / 465°F / gas 9 for 20 minutes, then reduce to 170°C / 340°F fan / 190°C / 375°F / gas 5 and roast a further 50 minutes for pink, or 65 for medium.

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6. Lift the lamb onto a warm dish, cover loosely with foil and rest 30 minutes.

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7. Meanwhile, put the chopped mint and sugar in a jug, pour the boiling water over and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the vinegar and salt and leave to stand.

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8. Skim the fat from the tin, add the stock and boil hard on the hob, scraping, until reduced by half. Strain.

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9. Carve across the grain and serve with the gravy and mint sauce.

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Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.

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A Few Pointers

• Thirty minutes resting, loosely covered. Not optional.
• Boiling water on the mint and sugar before the vinegar.
• An hour out of the fridge first, or the outside overcooks.

Some Background

Rest it as long as you roast it is an exaggeration, but not by much: thirty minutes under loose foil for a leg this size. The muscle fibres contract under heat and squeeze moisture towards the centre, and carving straight from the oven dumps all of it on the board. The mint sauce needs the boiling water poured over the chopped mint and sugar before the vinegar goes in — it dissolves the sugar and sets the colour, and mint chopped straight into cold vinegar goes black and tastes of nothing.

What to Put Next to It

Roast potatoes · Buttered peas · Redcurrant jelly

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Braised Red Cabbage, Bread Rolls, Buttered Carrots.

If You're Missing Something

• An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
• A dry vermouth keeps for longer than an open bottle of white wine and is the closer swap than a random white left in the fridge; for an alcohol-free version, use the same amount of stock with a squeeze of lemon.

Questions About Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce

Nutrition per Serving

Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.

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