Roast Lamb with Mint Pea Pesto
Home » COOK » Recipes » Meat & Fish Recipes » Lamb Recipes »A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to hubs that I really fancied a roast dinner, and bless him, he went out and bought the ingredients, picked up a recipe card from the supermarket and cooked us a delicious Roast Lamb with a Mint Pea Pesto – it was yummy and I’m sharing the recipe with you today!
The addition of the mint pea pesto to the lamb was fantastic and made a real change from a regular mint sauce. We served the lamb with new potatoes and some spring greens.
Lamb is often eaten around Easter, and I’ve got a collection of Easter Recipes that you might like to try out – right-click and open them in a new tab to read next.
Roast Lamb with Mint Pea Pesto
Ingredients
- 1 leg of lamb – the size will depend on how many you are feeding!
- garlic cloves thickly sliced
- fresh rosemary
- 1-2 onions peeled and cut into chunks
- 2-3 carrots peeled and cut into chunks
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- olive oil
For the mint pea pesto (4-6 portions)
- 200 g frozen peas
- 1 small bunch mint leaves only
- 1 tbsp capers rinsed
- 12 blanched almonds toasted and roughly chopped
- 1 small clove garlic crushed
- juice 1/2 small lemon
- 2½ tbsp olive oil
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Allow the meat to come to room temperature (about an hour) before preparing and cooking.
- Preheat the oven to 220C/Gas 7/200C fan.
- With a sharp knife, carefully make incisions all over the lamb and push a slice of garlic and some rosemary into each slit.
- Scatter the chopped onion and carrot into a roasting dish and place the lamb on top of the vegetables.
- Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and drizzle with a little olive oil
- Roast for 15 minutes and then turn the oven down to 190C/Gas 5/170C fan and cook according to the weight instructions for your joint of lamb. A 2kg leg joint takes about 1hr and 15 minutes. Allow the meat to rest for 20 minutes before carving. Cover with foil and tea towels to keep warm.
- To make the pesto, place the peas in a bowl and pour boiling water over to cover them. Leave for 2 minutes.
- Drain the peas and place into a food processor. Add the remaining pesto ingredients and whizz to form a paste. Season to taste
- Serve the roasted lamb with your choice of potatoes – new potatoes work really well, and with the mint pea pesto on the side.
Nutritional information is always approximate and will depend on the quality of ingredients used and serving sizes. If you need exact calories and macros, please do your own calculations.
Helen Brass
May 1, 2014 @ 9:26 am
Mmm…lamb and mint and peas and mint are two of my favourite combinations. This looks delicious – thanks for sharing.
Michelle Ordever
May 1, 2014 @ 12:19 pm
It was so delicious! I used the mint pea pesto as a pasta sauce the other night!