Book of Days Tales

Easter Sunday has had a great many meanings for me over the years from chocolate eggs as a boy to Ukrainian pysanky (painted eggs) when I lived near a Ukrainian enclave in the Catskills in NY, plus roast lamb for dinner. Roasting lamb is not complicated, but people in the U.S. tend to be clueless. Usually, they overcook it, but they often make that mistake with beef also.  Roast lamb should be pink on the inside, not well done. It should not be bloody like a rare steak but it should not be grey all the way through.  I do not use a meat thermometer but if you do, set it to 60–65°C for good and pink, and up from there for more well done.  I roast at the hottest my oven can go (250° C) and cook a 2 kg joint for one hour. The outside meat is well cooked and gets pinker as you slice in.

To prepare the joint I slice up cloves of garlic, pierce the skin of the joint all over, and insert the garlic about every inch apart on the surface.  I roast potatoes with the joint, and maybe a whole onion. In the last 15 minutes I add chunks of leeks (they cook very quickly). I make a mint sauce with fresh chopped mint leaves and malt vinegar, and a gravy of lamb broth, rosemary and garlic. Gut busting enough for an old git who eats only one meal per day.

This year I am making a golden syrup suet pudding for dessert but it may be Easter Monday before I have room for it in my tum.