Roasting a leg or shoulder cut of lamb is actually really easy to do but with a bit of extra effort you can turn a normal piece of meat into something really spectacular.
Ingredients:
leg or shoulder cut of lamb
Pimentos or six or seven allspice berries
Four whole bulbs of garlic
Two sprigs of rosemary
Rock salt and black pepper
Splash of red wine
Tuft of thyme
Olive oil
Method:
Firstly, choose your meat and make a note of the time that it will take to cook and the temperature according to the butcher's or packet instructions. Slice two whole bulbs of garlic in half, making four halves, and place them in the bottom of your roasting tin, cut (flat) side
down.
Place your piece of lamb on a board and imagine a grid covering the top of it, with the lines about an inch apart. Where the corners of each grid square would be, make a cm-deep incision with a sharp knife.
Take another couple of cloves of garlic and peel them, then cut them into fine slivers. Take a couple of sprigs of rosemary and pare them into tufts. In a pestle and mortar, grind a
teaspoon of rock salt, about six or seven allspice berries (you can find these in local shops, they might be called "pimentos" - they smell like cloves but are milder) and some normal black or green peppercorns
(dried).
Rub the upper side of the lamb - which you've dotted with incisions - with a good lot of olive oil. Smear with the salt, pepper and allspice, then tuck a sliver of garlic and a tuft of thyme into each incision. Rest this on the four pieces of garlic - one at each corner of the meat - and then pour a cm or so of red wine into the base of the dish - Merlot is recommended.
Cover with foil and place in your preheated oven. Half an hour before the end of the cooking time, remove the foil and finish off
uncovered. Brush the sprigs of thyme from the lamb and allow to rest for ten minutes before carving.
