There’s nothing nicer than a joint of succulent roast leg of lamb , covered in mint marinade and cooked to perfection!
Roast Leg of Lamb
Minted roast leg of lamb is a bit of a luxury when you are only two people to share it, so when I found my local supermarket selling whole lamb legs for the price of a small piece of lamb roast, I grabbed a few and asked the friendly butcher to chop them in half for me. The result – a freezer stocked with enough lamb roasts to stock a small farm!
We love lamb. There is so much you can do with it – roasted in the oven with garlic and rosemary, slow-cooked pull-apart lamb in the slow cooker, pot-roasted in the pressure cooker, or this way – minted and roasted to perfection.
Lamb is a very easy meat to cook. Just pop it in the oven and forget about it until it is done.
Follow my cooking times below to get perfect roast leg of lamb. Every. Single. Time.
Cooking times for leg of lamb
The ideal way to cook your lamb to perfection is to use a meat thermometer. When the internal temperature reaches a certain point your lamb is done and should be taken out and rested.
- Medium rare – very pink – 55 – 60 °C
- Medium – just a hint of pink – 61 – 66 °C
- Well done – no pink at all – 67 – 71 °C
If like me, you don’t own a meat thermometer you can just time your lamb instead
- Medium rare – very pink – 20 minutes per 450g + 20 mins
- Medium – just a hint of pink – 25 minutes per 450g + 25 minutes
- Well done – no pink at all -30 minutes per 450g + 30 minutes
The above times and temperatures assume an oven temperature of 190°C / 375 °F
For more information on cooking lamb, along with information on the different cuts of lamb, see this handy guide.
How to prepare and cook leg of lamb
To prepare the leg of lamb with mint marinade, sprinkle the lamb with salt to taste, then cover the whole joint with mint sauce. This allows the marinade to stick to the meat.
Sprinkle 1/2 a packet of powdered mint marinade over the mint sauce and pat down. You can find powdered mint marinade in the gravy section of any large supermarket or buy it on-line at Amazon
Place the lamb in a roasting dish, cover with a lid and place in a pre-heated oven for the times stated above.
If you don’t have a roasting dish with a lid – then just cover the dish with tinfoil.
10 minutes before the end of the cooking time (or 10 degrees before optimal temperature), remove the lid to allow the lamb to brown.
Rest the lamb
It is very important to allow the lamb to rest for at least 20 minutes after removing from the oven. This gives the meat time to relax and allows the juices to settle. If you carve it straight out of the oven all the delicious juices will just run all over your chopping board.
Leave the lamb in the roasting pan with the lid on, and let it stand until you are ready to carve.
I like to serve my Minted Lamb with roast potatoes and a selection of veggies and plenty of gravy made with the roasting juices.
Why not try it with my Boere boontjies (mashed green beans) and Baby Marrow with Tomato and Onion, or what about trying Potthucke (German potato cake bake) instead of the roast potatoes.
Make the gravy
For a quick and easy gravy just mix 1 Tablespoon of lamb gravy granules with a little boiling water and then make it up to 1 cup with the remains of the lamb roasting juices. The minty flavour from the lamb adds a delicious taste to the gravy.
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Convert grams to cups
To help you convert your recipes, I have created a handy Cookery Conversion Calculator which will convert ingredients between grams, ounces, tablespoons, cups and millilitres. I hope you will find it useful.
If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read about how to do this in this post on baking at high altitudes.
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Recipe – Minted Roast Leg of Lamb
Minted Roast Leg of Lamb
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg Leg of Lamb
- Salt to taste
- 4 Tablespoons mint sauce
- 1/2 packet mint marinade You may need a whole packet depending on the size of your lamb leg
- 1 – 2 Tablespoons olive oil For roasting tin
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 190 °C / 375 °F.
- Wipe the lamb with a damp cloth
- Season with salt and then rub with mint sauce
- Pat all over with dry mint marinade powder
- Place the lamb in a roasting dish. I like to line my dish with tin-foil to save on the washing up.
- Cover the roasting dish with another layer of tin-foil
- Place in the oven and leave for the times or temperature indicated below.*Internal temperature – Medium rare – very pink – 55 – 60 °C – Medium – just a hint of pink – 61 – 66 °C – Well done – no pink at all – 67 – 71 °C*Cooking time – Medium rare – very pink – 20 minutes per 450g + 20 mins – Medium – just a hint of pink – 25 minutes per 450g + 25 minutes – Well done – no pink at all -30 minutes per 450g + 30 minutes
- Remove from the oven and allow to rest for at least 20 minutes before carving
Notes
I am not a nutritionist. The nutrition information has been calculated using an on-line calculator, and is intended for information and guidance purposes only. If the nutrition information is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.
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