Greek-Style Marinated Leg of Lamb For Easter!

Spring is here. Traditionally this part of the spring--- the early part---- was a time of starvation. Lent might have made everyone feel virtuous but this time of year was pretty perilous ;the food stuffs from the fall harvest were down to the very end, and the garden had yet to yield anything substantial. But Easter is all about breaking the fast! It is about eating, and celebrating the renewal of earth’s fertility, oh and Christ’s resurrection for those of you non-heathens!

I have been developing recipes with my father's lamb(I know such a hard job!). I decided to work on a recipe for a slow-roasted leg of lamb that I marinated Greek-style with lots of herbs, garlic, sherry, lemon and salt, and I dare I say it came out just fantastic. The meat was so tender and the herbs and lemon where so lively and still did not overpower the lamb! At a Greek Easter a young lamb would be slaughtered and marinated and roasted over a spit, we do not slaughter baby lambs on our farm because we are a ranch(no dairy animals). I think the slow roasted really compliments the marinated leg because it is as close to a rotating spit as you can get with out going outside. This will welcome spring and all the freshness it brings! This is great with olive oil baked potatoes, and a spring salad! My boyfriend said it was the most exquisite meat he had ever tasted (this is why I love him, he says this to me each meal and means it).

Greek-Style Marinated Leg of Lamb

Ingredients:

• 1 leg of lamb with bone
• 2 tablespoons of sherry
• Juice of one lemon
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• 1 tablespoon rosemary
• cracked black pepper
  
• 1 teaspoon-1 tablespoon kosher salt (I added one tablespoon because I was only marinating it for a day but it was pretty salty which I liked because I made a simple pan sauce with the drippings and added no salt to anything else).
• a few cups of water to add to the roasting pan to deglaze the pan, i had to add a bit of water throughout the roasting because i did not want to have the drippings burn.

Preparation: Mince garlic and herbs mix with lemon juice and sherry. Marinate leg of lamb in for 1 to 2 days. Preheat oven to 325 degrees, roast until leg of lamb reaches an internal temperature of 130 degrees, this took about 1 1/2 hours for my parent's leg of lamb, which is a bit smaller then the legs you would find in your local grocer.