Surprisingly found New Zealand boneless legs of lamb from the Swiss supermarket, thought it would be a good idea to make roast lamb on Easter day for my in-laws.

I recalled I have one of Jamie Oliver’s earliest DVD which there is this roast lamb recipe that he sticked his finger into the lamb, looked pretty gross but I have to say his trick is practical. So after bought this DVD for all these years, I finally got a chance to try this out. He used lamb shank but I think I was even more fortunate to be able to find the boneless .

Adapted from Jamie’s recipe:

Serves 6
Ingredients:

• 2 boneless legs of lamb (about 700-750g per piece)
• Sprigs of fresh sage
• Sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 fresh lime juice

Directions:

1. Using a small sharp knife, hold the knife from an angle and score 5-6 cuts into the lamb. Each cut should be about 1 cm wide x 2.5cm deep. Put your finger into each hole, this makes it easier for you to push the herb mix inside.
2. Peeled the cloves of garlic, pick the leaves from sage and rosemary, coarsely chopped them and place all these into a mortar. Add in the olive oil, lime juice and some salt & pepper. Crush them into pieces using the pestle.
3. Tuck the herb olive oil mixture into the cuts and rub the remaining oil around the lamb.
4. Place the lamb into a baking tray, add a whole sprig rosemary and some whole sage leaves on top of the lamb if you like.
5. You can make until this step a few hours in advance, cover and keep in the fridge.
6. When you are ready to cook, take the baking tray out of the fridge and rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat the oven at 190ºC.
7. Place in the middle rack of the oven and roast for 30mins for each 500gr.
8. Cut the lamb into slices and serve with your favorite vegetables.

 Enjoy!

Notes:

• I was supposed to use lemon juice but I have used the lemon for my homemade hummus. Nevertheless, it came out that lime juice also works and it proves any citrus would work. The lime juice did not taste prominant or noticeable. The citrus juice acts as a meat tenderizer . I have seen recipes using orange juice as well.
• I chose 190ºC because my in-laws prefer the meat not too red. I got rosé this time. If you prefer rarer, you can shorten the roasting time by 10 minutes per 500g or roast at 180ºC.