It’s not just eggs and chocolate that are synonymous with Easter. Here’s how to cook up a perfectly delicious seasonal lamb.
As Easter weekend approaches, many of us may be starting to think more towards seasonal spring cooking.
Around this time of year, lamb is often on the menu and a feature in many fine-dining dishes.
To help us create the perfect celebratory roast ahead of Easter Sunday, award-winning Scottish chef and former MasterChef: The Professionals contestant David Hetherington has offered up his top tips, in association with Aldi.
Choosing the perfect centrepiece for your Easter table is key, says David, who has created this delicious recipe using Aldi’s Scotch whole leg of lamb. He has recently been working with the supermarket to show customers how to create tasty meals that will feed a family of four for less than £6.
David said: “With spring comes such an abundance of stunning Scottish ingredients, which is why I was so thrilled when Aldi asked me if I would share a recipe for their new Scotch whole leg of lamb – arguably the finest centrepiece for an Easter roast.
“For an added twist, I suggest getting outdoors and foraging for some wild garlic which grows in abundance at this time of year around Scotland – the smell is unmistakable and adds the finishing touch to this dish.”
Roast Scotch whole leg of lamb, anchovy, wild garlic and rosemary
David says: “This recipe calls for wild garlic. However, you can leave it out and just use regular garlic and throw in some spinach leaf for colour.”
(Serves 6-8)
Ingredients
- 2kg leg of Aldi’s Scotch lamb
- 6 anchovy fillets
- 500g wild garlic (normal garlic is fine to substitute – 6 cloves)
- ½ a bunch of fresh rosemary
- 1.5 kg potatoes
- 1 lemon
- olive oil
- 1 pack tender stem broccoli
- 2 bunches spring onions
- 1 bag spinach
- 1 bag kale
Method
- Crank the oven on to 200°C/Gas 6 and let it preheat. Stick a roasting tray on the bottom to heat for our radical roasties!
- Try to take the lamb out of the fridge at least an hour before cooking, this allows the meat to come up to room temperature and cook more evenly.
- Peel the garlic and pop it in a food processor with the wild garlic and anchovies, blend to a pulp, adding two tablespoons of oil to loosen it up. A mortar and pestle will also work well with this. Set aside.
- Peel your potatoes and pop into a large pot of cold water. Bring them to the boil, and let it boil for about 5 minutes. It’s important here we soften the potatoes a little, but we’re also not wanting to make mash… so just soft enough that a knife goes into a potato with little resistance.
- Chop up the rosemary, drain the potatoes and toss in the rosemary with some salt and pepper, just enough to rough the edges a little.
- Score the skin of the lamb and rub generously with our wild garlic anchovy mix, (leave a little to toss our veggies in) and zest some lemon over, then place directly onto the bars of your oven so that it is perched above the roastie tray.
- Now here’s the genius bit, pop the tatties into the roasting tray that will now catch all the lovely lamb juices as it cooks!
- Cooking the lamb for around 1 hour and 20 minutes will give you a lovely medium rare.
- Meanwhile, wash all of the greens, blanch all, bar the spinach, in boiling water for no more than 1 ½ minutes and plunge straight into cold water to keep the colour, taste and nutrients vibrant.
- Once the lamb is ready, leave it to rest for at least 30 minutes.
- Warm up the leftover wild garlic mix and toss the veg in it to warm through, adding the spinach at the last moment.
- Carve the Scotch Whole Leg of Lamb, serve with gorgeous spring veggies and our radical roasties!
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