Greek Style Roasted Lamb

This recipe is one of the first that i have ever written for this blog. Roasted Lamb is a classic dish on any given Sunday in Greece but also during Easter.

Typically in Easter you need to fast for 40 days , without eating any meat at all. Until The Great Saturday where everyone is going to the church and returns home to eat the Magiritsa (soup made of lamb) and the next day you eat a lamp.

So during these days you can see everyone in the country side making the lamp skewed, which is something I really like, but unfortunately we cannot do it in the UK.  So back in 2009 we took the decision to make it in the oven…which was kind of difficult as ..you don’t usually do a 7-8 kilos lamp in the oven over here. But ..it was done..

To be honest the recipe doesn’t have any special ingredients. Most of the times people just use olive oil, oregano and lemon juice as this keeps the natural taste of the lamb.

Ideally that’s what you should also if you want to keep it 100% traditional.  The only thing that i like to add is a bit of mustard as it makes it a bit more spicy.

The important thing about this time was to cook the lamb on low heat for many hours so to properly cook it as it was a big portion.

The following recipe though is a bit infused with modern Greek improvisation and i am happy to say it worked.

INGREDIENTS FOR GREEK STYLE ROASTED LAMB

1. Around 1.5 kilo of lamb leg (or shoulder, it works really well.
2. 4gr of salt
3. 2gr of pepper

For the Sauce

• 100gr of olive oil
• 15gr of garlic
• 50gr of mustard
• Oregano, Thyme
• A bit of water
• One tea spoon of honey

For the potatoes

• 1 kilo of potatoes in small pieces
• 70gr of oliveoil
• 130gr lemon juice
• 5gr of oregano
• butter

Place the potatoes on the oven and add the olive oil, oregano, the lemon juice and the butter. Use your hands to spread it equally on all of them.

In a blender add olive oil, a bit of water, garlic, thyme and oregano as well as the mustard.  Mix them properly until they become one.

Place the lamb over the potatoes and cover it with an aluminium foil. Start cooking it in the oven at 120-150c for around 5-6 hours. Depending on the size of your lamb you might need to cook it more or less.  What you are looking for is the meat to be really soft and have a nice color.