Festive Roast Leg of Lamb

Active Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes (+15 minutes resting)

This is for a 2kg leg of lamb cooked medium. 

For other sizes of lamb joint cook it for…

• Medium – 25 minutes + 25 minutes per 500g
• Well Done – 30 minutes + 30 minutes per 500g

For a really tender roast lamb I’d recommend removing the lamb from the fridge an hour before you start cooking.
Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 1 leg (or half leg) of lamb
• Approx. 10 cloves
• A few sprigs of rosemary
• 1 heaped tbsp cranberry sauce (I prefer to use chunky cranberry sauce, but smooth is fine if that’s what you’ve got)

Zest of ¼ of an orange

• Salt

Method

1. About an hour before you want to cook your lamb, remove it from the fridge, remove all packaging and place into a large roasting dish. Cover the lamb with cling film and allow it to come up to room temperature before roasting (about an hour).
2. Remove the cling film and use a sharp knife to cut small slits in the lamb. Place a clove in each slit (see the picture above for how I spaced mine out). Lay a few sprigs of fresh rosemary on top of the lamb. Season with salt.
3. Pre-heat your oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan).
4. In a small bowl mix together the cranberry sauce (1 heaped tbsp) and orange zest (¼ orange).
5. Roast the lamb for 2 hours, 5 minutes (adjust the time according to the weight of the lamb). About every 20-30 minutes, baste the joint with the juices in the bottom of the tray. Half an hour before the lamb has finished cooking, remove it from the oven and brush it with the cranberry and orange mixture so it has a thin coating all over the outside then return it to the oven to finish cooking.
6. Once the lamb has cooked remove it from the oven, cover with foil and leave to rest for 15 minutes before carving. Remove the cloves and rosemary sprigs before serving.