Monthly Archives: December 2009


Rare Roast Beef and Leg of Lamb

If you’re like me, then you’ve always fretted about the fact that roasting a beef rib roast meant overcooked meat on the outside and too-rare meat on the inside just to have most of the meat a beautiful pink.  Well, thanks to The New Best Recipe (p.402) I’ve discovered the answer, apparently one which the big roast beef restaurants have known for decades: low and slow.

I first tried the technique on a a five-rib roast beef and it worked superbly.  I then said to myself “Why not leg of lamb?”  So I went to McKinnon’s in Davis Square (one of my latest discoveries: every sort of meat you could imagine, including beef tongue, at wonderful prices) and picked up this beauty:

I cleaned it up a bit (including the removal of almost all of the exterior fat), put a lot of rosemary in the middle, and tied it up.  Then the garlic slivers around the surface.  In order to have a pleasantly brown exterior, you need to brown it on the stovetop before roasting it. Then, put it into a 250° oven for 3 1/2 hours or until the very center reaches 128° — which was exactly 210 minutes for me. Take it out and let it sit at least 15 minutes.

And you’ll get this:

When you’re looking for ways to use the left-overs, I’d highly recommend one of my favorite menu items from Jean-Georges’s Mercer Kitchen in SoHo: a roast lamb sandwich with roasted red pepper and spicy mayonnaise (mix harissa with Hellman’s):

Now you’re talking!