According to Geoff Jansz, cooking a lamb roast is risky business. Half the guests want a bland gravy, while the others want something more interesting! Geoff demonstrated an easy way to cook a leg of lamb, and showed how to turn one gravy into two for a win-win situation.

Roasting a leg of lamb

Geoff said that there are many ways to roast a leg of lamb, but the easiest is to first trim off the excess fat. Rub the leg with oil, salt and pepper. Put it into an oven pre-heated to 200°C, and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of the leg. Then switch the oven off, and 30 minutes later the leg of lamb will be ready to carve.

Serve with either Geoff’s mint and onion gravy, or garlic, rosemary and black pepper gravy.

Making gravy

Mint & onion gravy

• 1 large onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon mint jelly
• 500mL stock

Garlic, rosemary & black pepper

• 1 large onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 glass red wine
• 30mL sherry vinegar
• fresh rosemary
• crushed garlic
• black pepper
• salt
• 500mL stock

Method

1. Prepare 1 litre of good stock.
2. Core and slice the onions.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of butter to a hot frying pan. Add the onions and fry, stirring constantly for about 15 minutes (until they caramelise).
4. Take half the quantity of fried onions and transfer to a second frying pan.
5. To make the mint and onion gravy: add a generous tablespoon of mint jelly and 500mL of the stock to one frying pan. When the mint jelly dissolves the sauce is ready.
6. To make the garlic, rosemary & black pepper gravy: add the red wine to the fried onions in the other frying pan. Boil until the wine evaporates. Add the sherry vinegar, salt, rosemary, garlic, black pepper and the rest of the stock (500mL). Simmer until the mixture reaches sauce consistency.

Copyright CTC Productions 2003