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Healthy Family Recipes - Roast Leg of Lamb

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Roast Leg Of Lamb with Garlic and Rosemary
Nick Nairn

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1.8 kg/4½lb Freedom Food labelled leg of lamb
2-3 large branches of rosemary (or a couple of packets)
4 large garlic cloves
olive oil
freshly ground black pepper

For the 'stew':
675g/1½lbs baby plum tomatoes
4 tbsp olive oil
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
675g/1½lbs broad beans in the pod to give about 350g/12oz beans or use frozen broad beans
a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. Pull small sprigs off the rosemary. Cut the garlic into thick slivers or sticks. Score the meat deeply in a wide criss-cross pattern (about 2cm or ¾ inch deep). Rub the whole leg with olive oil and set in a roasting tin.

2. Tuck the rosemary and garlic into the cuts. Grind over plenty of black pepper. Roast for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and roast for a further hour, basting from time to time.

3. Remove the meat from the oven, transfer to a warm carving dish, cover loosely with foil and leave to rest in a warm place for 15 minutes before carving. While the meat is resting, you can spoon the fat from the juices left in the pan, add a little white wine or water, boil up, scraping all the sticky bits up from the base of the tin. Taste and season for gravy.

For the 'stew':

1. Take the beans out of their furry pods. Blanche in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain and plunge into a bowl of cold water to cool them down quickly. Drain again and pop them out of their skins. (If using frozen beans, cook in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and do exactly the same as for the fresh ones).

2. Scatter the tomatoes into a roasting tin and pour over the olive oil. Mix them around and season with salt and pepper.

3. Tuck in the thyme and roast in the oven with the lamb for about 20 minutes or until slightly collapsed and the skins are beginning to brown. Mix in the beans and return to the oven to heat up the beans. Serve with the lamb.