How do you celebrate Easter? Easter brunch, lunch or dinner? I grew up eating the traditional British late lunch/early dinner similar to this one pan roast lamb with mint sauce. If you’re serving Easter brunch, I have a delicious selection of brunch items from Ricotta and Spinach Frittata, Baked Breakfast Potatoes with Eggs to something sweet like Orange and Apple French Toast Casserole. Also, don’t forget the Traditional Hot Cross Buns left over from Good Friday. The way I love to season the lamb, and it’s a simple, but effective way, is to insert garlic and rosemary right into the meat and it flavors it perfectly. The outside gets rubbed with oil and a light sprinkle of salt and pepper, nothing more and all the flavors work happily together along with the mint sauce. For this Rosemary Garlic Roasted Lamb with Potatoes and Fennel, I used a boneless leg of lamb. You can use a bone-in leg of lamb but it will take a little longer to roast. I always say, it is best to go off of a meat thermometer rather than time when it comes to cooking meat as not all ovens are accurately calibrated for temperature. And this ensures perfectly cooked meat every time. Roasting the lamb on top of the potatoes and fennel serves two purposes. It cooks the vegetables at the same time in the same pan (which saves cleanup) and flavors the potatoes in the best possible way. As a rule in my house, you can’t have roast lamb without mint sauce. I know that most people know mint jelly, but growing up for my family it was mint sauce. Made very simply with freshly chopped mint, malt vinegar (very British), sugar and water. This mint sauce is my mother’s recipe that I would help her make whenever we had roast lamb. We always had large bushes of mint growing in the garden and it was my job to go and pick it. So that takes care of the main event (lamb) and potatoes. For the EASIEST and tastiest veggie side dish, I have for you Roasted Carrots with Green Spring Garlic Pesto Story that will not only knock YOUR sock off, but the socks everyone who you are serving. Metaphorically speaking, of course… Another Easter traditional dish is ham and Mandarin Orange Spiced Glazed Ham is perfect if you’re not a fan of lamb, or serve both, the best of both worlds.
