High-Temperature Roast Lamb

I've had my eye on High-Temperature Roast Leg of Lamb in Craig Claiborne's New New York Times Cookbook (fp209) for a long time, just never got around to doing it. Turns out the same recipe is in this book as High-Temperature Roast Lamb.

This is a really easy way to cook lamb. While your oven heats to 500F, stick your lamb leg full of garlic slivers and rub it with salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, and a broken bay leave. Pour slogs of olive oil and vermouth into the pan and pop into the hot oven for 15 minutes (for rosé), then turn off the oven and let it sit undisturbed for 3 hours. (Timings are given if you prefer your lamb more done.) Result: a beautiful, delicious leg of lamb with next to no effort.

My oven would only go to about 475F, so I left the leg an extra five minutes in the hot oven, trying to compensate for the missing heat. Three hours after that there was a perfect rosé lamb ready to eat.

The sauce remaining, once defatted, was minimal, so I wouldn't plan on having lots of gravy here.

The only minus point is that the meat is relatively cool after sitting in the oven for so long. If you like piping hot meat, this isn't the recipe for you.