In honour of receiving 4 new cook books for my birthday last month, I decided to flip through pages and randomly stop on a meal that looked both interesting and fairly easy to make. So on page 204 of one of my new books I came across a recipe for lamb that was absolutely brilliant. It’s inspired by South African flavours and quite honestly made for a wonderful Sunday night dinner. The recipe is called Cape Town Lamb. I had to adapt the cooking times for the size and type of lamb we had and I added in a few BGE points for all the Eggheads out there.
The recipe goes a bit like this:
1 bone out leg of lamb (2.5 pounder)
6 cloves of garlic
6 thin slices of fresh young ginger
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
For the marinade and glaze:
1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp dried mustard
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 cloves minced garlic
1 tbsp minced young ginger
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Combine all of the above ingredients to make the marinade/glaze. Put it in a medium sized saucepan and bring it to a simmer, stirring occasionally so that it all blends in nicely. Once done (about 5 minutes worth of simmering), pull it off the heat and set it aside to let it cool down to room temperature.
Once cool, take the lamb and put it in a large zip-top bag. Pour in half of the marinade/glaze and set the other half into a covered container and plonk it in the fridge. Our lamb marinated for about 33 hours and the flavours that resulted were incredible.
When you’re ready for grilling the next day, set up your kit to grill for indirect heat at 400 F with a drip pan full of water. You’ll add a handfull of hickory chips and let it start to smoke. Now go roll that lamb into something that resembles a roast! (This, by the way, is when you ask your darling wife for an extra pair of hands…makes the work go smoother!)
Add your sliced garlic, ginger and rosemary into the lamb and roll it all up. Tie it tightly with butcher’s string and put it on a vertical rack.
Our lamb was pretty small so the overall cooking time was just over an hour. I flipped the roast twice to ensure and even browning on the outside. Now for the glaze (thanks Rod!) – at about the 30 minute mark, paint the lamb with a decent covering of the glaze and one final glazing with about 5-10 minutes left in your grilling time. You can use the remaining glaze as a wonderful dipping sauce which provides a lovely sweet and sour twang to the lamb!
Once you hit an internal temperature of 145F, you’re ready to remove the lamb roast and wrap it in some aluminium foil and a towel. Let it rest for 10 minutes before you start to carve.
Heather made an amazing, watermelon, mint, apple, cucumber, lemon and feta salad to go along with some herbed pita bread, lightly toasted.
Absolute yum!
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Overall Heather Rating: 9/10