Roasted Leg of Lamb with White Wine

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A roast leg of lamb with white wine, potatoes, and lots of garlic: this is the centerpiece on any serious Easter table in Romania and in many other parts of the world.

 

White Wine Lamb

 

 

Roasted leg of lamb with white wine, potatoes and green beans on the side is probably my favorite Easter meal. Or it competes for the first place with sarmale – Romanian cabbage rolls. Hard to decide!

I should probably do it like my family in Romania: cook both, add the chicken and semolina dumpling soup, the boeuf salad and the chicken drob. Make a cheese or spinach roll, cozonac, pasca, and a couple more cakes… and, of course, the hard-boiled eggs.

And eat continuously for a week. And no, I am not kidding! This is the way it goes in Romania at Easter.

I don’t get to make roast lamb often for Easter now, because since I got married we always have Easter lunch in my mother-in-law’s house and she never tasted (and never will) this kind of meat in her life. She always makes a roast duck for Easter.

But I do make roasted white wine lamb, pulled lamb or shoulder of lamb quite often for us and for guests, and always in those years when the Romanian (orthodox) Easter and the German (evangelic) Easter don’t fall on the same date. Then we get to have Easter lunch twice.

 

 

How to buy a leg of lamb?

If you live in Germany, you will probably only get lamb at the butcher’s and only ordered in advance. Regular stores only have about 5 times a year, so you cannot really plan a meal according to that. Otherwise, you can try the freezer section of larger stores.

I always buy it in ethnic stores (Turkish, Syrian, Russian), they always have it fresh, either shoulder or leg, boneless pieces, lamb chops and so on.

Ask the butcher to trim the leg for you. They always have this long bone sticking out and if that bone is too long, the leg of lamb might not fit into your roasting tin. And you will probably not be able to cut it yourself at home, not with a regular knife anyway.

The butcher could also trim away some of the thick layer of fat, you do need some fat, but not that super thick outer layer.

If you would like to make lamb stock, take the bone that was cut off and make stock using that and the remaining bone after you have roasted and eaten the lamb. Leave the fat behind, there is nothing you can do with it.

 

 

How to roast lamb with white wine?

I tried to recreate this recipe on the memories I have of my mother’s lamb many many years ago. A leg of lamb slowly cooked in the oven with lots of wine. I can’t still remember the aroma that filled the house that day.

A good thing about this recipe is that you can cook the meat and the potatoes in the same dish, in the oven. This way you can easily prepare the sides or the other courses on the stove.

Flavor the meat:

• A typical way of flavoring lamb is to make some incisions into the meat using a small sharp knife and stuff these slits with garlic slivers.
• Be generous with the garlic, it really imparts a lot of flavor into the meat.
• Rub the leg of lamb all over with oil and sprinkle it generously with salt and pepper.
• You can use other spices as well if you like, but Romanian cooking is not using lots of spices generally, so salt, pepper and maybe some sweet paprika is normally enough.
• Add some sprigs fresh rosemary and bay leaves to the baking tray, rosemary and lamb are great together.
• Add white wine and water to the tray as well.

Roast:

• Make sure the oven is preheated.
• Once everything is on the tray, cover it loosely with aluminum foil.
• You have to make sure though, that the liquid in the tin never cooks off completely, check about every 15-20 minutes and baste the leg of lamb with the liquid while you are at it.
• If the liquid cooks off, add more white wine regularly.
• Start with roasting the lamb for 30 minutes. Turn it on the other side, baste well, place the aluminum foil on top again and continue roasting for another 15 minutes.
• Clean and half the new potatoes during this time.
• Turn the piece of meat again, baste it, place the potatoes around it, cover again and continue baking for 30 minutes.
• Remove the foil, baste again and continue roasting for about 15 minutes until the meat is nicely colored and the potatoes are soft.

 

Internal temperature:

I don’t usually cook this white wine lamb by checking the internal temperature, it is a standard Romanian dish, which cooks the meat quite well. However, checking the internal temperature gives you more freedom, it allows you to cook the lamb exactly to your liking.

To check the internal temperature, stick the thermometer about 5 cm/ 2 inches into the thickest part of the meat, without touching the bone.

If you cook the lamb according to the internal temperature and the potatoes are not quite soft when you are done with the meat, remove the leg from the oven, place it on a large platter, cover it loosely with foil and let rest while the potatoes continue roasting (uncovered).

The recommended safe temperature should be 63 degrees Celsius/ 145 degrees Fahrenheit for medium-well done meat.

Rare: 46-49 degrees Celsius/ 115-120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Medium-rare: 49-52 degrees Celsius/ 120-125 degrees Fahrenheit.

Medium: 54-57 degrees Celsius/ 130-135 degrees Fahrenheit.

Medium-well: 60-63 degrees Celsius/ 140-145 degrees Fahrenheit.

Well-done: 65-68 degrees Celsius/150-155 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

What to serve?

Green Beans with Garlic

Healthier Green Bean Casserole

French-Style Green Beans

Simple Roasted Whole Carrots

Whole Roasted Cauliflower

 

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