Cooking Lamb - some tips

Some of our readers have expressed their interest in learning more about cooking the lamb leg which I prepared for Christmas. So here's some information to help them create their own scrumptious lamb dish.

We bought the deboned lamb leg and lamb rack from Cold Storage. The meat sold there is really fresh and they have a service where you can get the butcher to slice the meat and marinate it for you, at no extra charge. There is a good selection of marinades that you can choose from. For special events like Christmas, it'd be good to order beforehand so they can get it prepared earlier for you.



I ordered the lamb leg a few days before Christmas and requested for them to help me get it cut into 6 slices, and marinate it with rosemary and mint.



After I brought the lamb leg and lamb rack home, I added more seasoning to enhance the flavour further. A bit of olive oil was added, followed by a sprinkle of salt and pepper and roast lamb seasoning (from the brand Masterfoods®). Before packing it up again and putting it into the chiller, I added fresh rosemary all round the slices of lamb for that nice aromatic herb flavour. It would be good to leave the marinade on for a few hours so that the flavours of the seasoning get really drawn into the meat.

Before placing the lamb onto the pan, make sure the pan is already hot. You can choose not to add any oil as the oil from the fats of the meat will be released as it cooks. I normally just add a little. When that's ready, place the lamb leg slices/lamb rack in the pan for searing. After putting them in the pan, just leave it and don't keep moving them around. After a couple of minutes, check to see if they can be picked up nicely to flip around. If they stick to the pan, you can give it another minute or so. Take note that the pieces of meat are of different sizes, so some could be ready sooner than the others.

When the lamb slices have been seared on both sides, place them on a pan to roast in a preheated oven. I normally preheat the oven when I start searing the meat so I can put them in the oven right after it's done. This time, I put the oven on 170°C for about 10 min as my mum prefers the meat well-cooked. If you prefer the meat to be still a little reddish on the inside, maybe about 7-8 min will do. This is all based on personal preference, so you can carry out trial and error with every attempt. :)

As the meat is cooking in the oven, you can take the time to prepare a delectable sauce with red wine. Pour a good amount of red wine (at least half a bottle for 4 servings) into the pan in which you seared the lamb. Do not waste those wonderful bits sticking to the bottom of the pan! As the red wine heats up, scrape the bottom of the pan. Those bits add delicious flavour to the sauce. Add some chopped garlic and continue cooking the red wine till it reduces a little more. After that, I added some chopped white button mushrooms and stirred in some cream. Let the sauce simmer till it thickens. After that, I added freshly chopped rosemary herbs and sprinkled some sugar into the sauce. The sugar is added to tone down the sourish taste of the wine. The you can just leave it till the meat is ready.

Once the lamb is cooked, arrange them nicely on the dishes and pour the sauce over the meat. I like to also add some vegetables to the dish to add some colour. It would be good to save some of the herbs too - they look great as garnish on the plate. When all that's done.....Voila!! Present your masterpiece! :)