Impress your guests this Easter with tender lamb served with homemade smashed cucumbers and fennel tzatziki. Everyone will be going back for more.
Serves66
Cook time1 hr 30 mins1 hour 30 minutes
Prep time25 mins25 minutes, + 15 mins resting time
+ 15 mins resting time
If you're looking for a roast that's impressive, but also simple to cook, you can't go past roast lamb. Get yourself a boneless leg roast from Coles. I'll show you how to make it special with just a little spice and some refreshing sides. First of all, you preheat your oven to 150 Celsius or 130 if you're cooking fan-forced. Now let's get some spices into a bowl. I've got some onion powder, some paprika, some garlic powder, and some salt and pepper. Look at that beautiful leg of lamb. Get a little bit of olive oil, you don't need a lot. And then mix up your spices. I just love the way that this works on lamb. It really is special. Evenly sprinkle all over, and then of course we turn our lamb leg over and sprinkle those spices. Now as this cooks, of course, that fat is going to slowly render down so it's going to slowly crisp up and render and that's what we want. So you want to make sure the fat cap is on the top of the lamb not on the bottom. Now sit your lamb in the roasting pan and leave it at room temperature until your oven heats up. That way you're tempering the lamb that's actually coming up to room temperature, which will give you a more even cook. When you're ready to cook the lamb, put the pan in the oven and roast for about an hour to an hour and a quarter. Our lamb’s been in for about an hour and a quarter. At this point, it's time to test the internal temperature using an instant read thermometer. And you've got to poke that into the thickest part of the lamb. Let me grab it. Now, we want to end up at medium-rare. This lamb is not finished cooking, we are going to crank the heat in a minute and put it back in. But if you have one of these instant read thermometers, they really are great. So what I'm looking for is somewhere around 48 degrees. Choose sort of the thickest part of the lamb and poke it right on in. And look at that, we're at 49.48 perfect. Turn it up now to 250 Celsius, so a really hot oven because we're going to get it beautifully crusty and golden brown. Once that oven is super hot, we're going to blast it for another 10 to 15 minutes. It's ready when it's beautifully browned on the outside and the internal temperature has reached between 54 and 56 Celsius. Now remember, the temperature will keep rising for a while once the lamb comes out and is rested. So I'm going to let it rest for 15 minutes before carving. Now, I'm going to show you some simple sides to serve with your lamb here, really quick and easy. But you can also get ahead with them so they're ready at the same time as your lamb. First up, I'm making my smashed cucumbers. This one's a bit of fun, and we're going to trim them and then cut them into thirds. Something like that. Next you get yourself a sealable bag like this and throw them all in. And this is the fun part. You take a rolling pin and just lightly whack them. Now not too hard, just enough so they flatten ever so slightly and they start to split. Now you can use your fingers to sort of tear those up into little sort of even pieces like about three centimetres, I’d say. You put them into a bowl and then you toss them with some sea salt, sprinkled over nicely. My oven’s up to temperature so I'm going to take my lamb and drop it back in. Okay, next up is my fennel tzatziki. First take a peeled cucumber and a box grater. We're going to grate that cucumber straight into a big bowl, the whole thing. Then all you have to do is stir in that Greek-style yoghurt. Take that Greek-style yoghurt and pour that in and then my fennel seeds. It's a really beautiful flavour. So you want to toast the seeds in a frying pan first and then grind them out. Finally, to finish, just a little salt and pepper. We've made our tzatziki, the lamb is almost done. What we're going to do now that our cucumbers have had a moment to let the salt go to work, we're going to drain off all of that excess liquid that comes out. Pour it all off and discard it. Then we dress it with olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic and mint. So just drizzle over the olive oil. Hit it with some lemon zest. Take your clove of garlic. We're going to use that on the microplane as well. Some fresh mint leaves and a little lemon juice and toss. Wow, that is delicious. A touch more salt and just a touch more extra virgin olive oil. And you've got a beautiful, fresh, perfect accompaniment to your roast lamb. Talking of roast lamb, let's get it out of the oven. Oh my goodness, that looks wonderful. Now we do need to let it rest. So as much as you want to dive in, give it 15 minutes before you carve it. And that way, you're going to get this perfect succulent lamb. The moment of truth has arrived. So let's go ahead and carve. Now I don't know about you, but when I see this, as the chef who made it, I feel like I deserve a little taste. So good. I don't know how you improve on that. It's delicious. It's spicy. It's my lamb roast. Perfect for entertaining. Perfect for every night of the week.
Ingredients
3 tsp ground paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 Coles Australian Lamb Boneless Leg Roast (about 1.2kg)
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
Smashed cucumbers
8 Lebanese cucumbers, ends trimmed, cut crossways into thirds
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon, zested, juiced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 cup mint leaves, torn
Fennel tzatziki
1 Lebanese cucumber, peeled
200g plain Greek-style yoghurt
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, toasted, crushed
Check ingredient labels to make sure they meet your specific dietary requirements and always consult a health professional before changing your diet. View dietary information here.
Percentage Daily Intake information on our recipes is calculated using the nutrition reference values for an average Australian adult.
Method
Step 1
Preheat oven to 150°C (130°C fan-forced). In a small bowl, mix the paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, 1 1/2 tsp sea salt flakes and 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper. Brush the lamb evenly with the oil and sprinkle with the spice mix. Place the lamb in a roasting pan.
Step 2
Roast the lamb for 1-1 1/4 hours or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the lamb registers 48°C for medium-rare or until cooked to your liking. Increase oven temperature to 250°C (230°C fan-forced).
Step 3
Roast lamb for a further 10-15 mins or until browned outside and internal temperature registers between 54°C and 56°C. Set aside for 15 mins to rest.
Step 4
Meanwhile, to make the smashed cucumbers, place the cucumbers in a large sealable plastic bag. Using a rolling pin, lightly pound the cucumbers to flatten and split them open. Using your fingers, tear up the cucumbers into 3cm pieces and transfer to a medium bowl. Toss the cucumbers with 1 tsp sea salt flakes and set aside for 15 mins or up to 1 hour. Drain the liquid from the cucumbers and discard. Toss cucumbers with oil, lemon zest, 1 1/2 tbs lemon juice, garlic and mint. Season with salt and pepper. Add more lemon juice, if desired.
Step 5
To make the fennel tzatziki, using the large holes on a box grater, coarsely grate the cucumber into a medium bowl. Add the yoghurt, oil and fennel seeds and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
Step 6
Arrange the lamb on a large serving platter with the smashed cucumbers and fennel tzatziki. Thickly slice the lamb to serve.
Serve with mint leaves and lemon wedges.
Get ahead
Make the fennel tzatziki up to 1 day ahead. Cover and store in the fridge.
