Barbacoa-Spiced Easter Lamb | Food Wishes

We’re not using the traditional cooking method of Central Mexican barbacoa, but we are using the same amazing flavors, which pair perfectly with lamb. This is incredible sliced and served on a plate, and the leftovers can be used to make some of the best tacos you’ve ever had. This slow, moist roasting method will give you melt-in-your-mouth tender, juicy, flavorful lamb leg roast, no matter what seasonings you use. Enjoy!

For the fully formatted, printable, written recipe, follow this link: https://www.allrecipes.com/easter-egg-rolls-recipe-8602830

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Hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with barbacoa spiced Easter lamb that’s right we’re using the flavors of Barbacoa but not the traditional cooking method since apparently a lot of homes in apartments these days do not come with fire pits but don’t worry this oven method I’m

About to show you Works incredibly well whether we’re going to serve this sliced on a plate or chopped up for some tacos and I’m going to show you both and what we’ll need to get started is one big old Lego lamb and as you can see this one

Has the bone in right there’s the leg bone which of course attaches to the hip bone and then this side is where the shank was attached which the butcher has removed but if yours came with the shank that’s fine this method will still work

And what I like to do first is take a sharp thin knife and with the fat side up I like to score this about every half inch or so slicing down about a quarter of an inch going from one end to the other and then we’ll turn it and do the

Same thing the other way which is going to help our spice rub get down through that fat to the meat speaking of which once we’re done slashing we will start stabbing right a couple inches deep all over and then once we feel like that side’s been stabbed enough we will flip

It over and we will stab the other side all over as well oh and be careful of the bone we don’t want you to spray in a wrist since no one will believe how it happened hey how’d you hurt your wrist stab and lamb so be careful and that’s

It our Lego lamb is now ready for our barar COA inspired spice rub which is going to start with some kosher salt followed by some freshly ground black pepper and then we’ll also definitely want some chili powder and I’m using regular standard chili powder plus an extra tablespoon of ancho chili which

Yes is very dark but delicious and if you don’t have that just use more of the regular but either way we’ll also want some ground Chipotle as well as some dried Mexican oregano or any oregano and then we’ll finish up with a little bit of cinnamon plus some

Garlic powder and then to turn this into a paste we will use some Citrus juice in the form of one orange one lemon and then a couple limes or in my case more than a couple small Mexican limes which kind of sort of look like little lemons

And they kind of taste like something in between and yes I really should have done that through a strainer right seeds aren’t that big of a deal here but it kind of bugged me so I did remove a few between shots before I took a whisk and mixed this up

And once it is mixed we can place in our Lego lamb and then we’ll use a fork to keep flipping that over until it’s thoroughly and completely coated with the rub and while I do that I should mention this is a very streamlined very simple very userfriendly Barbacoa spice

Rub all right for the real deal we would be soaking whole chilies and then pureeing them but trust me this is still going to Tastee amazing and we’re going to save a lot of time and then speaking of time once our lamb is completely coated we’re going to transfer this into

The fridge to marinate for I would say a minimum of 24 hours although I really do think 2 days is better which is why I did leave mine in the fridge for 48 hours and if you can remember it’s good to give it a flip halfway through or

Several flips during the process just to make sure both sides are getting their fair share and by the way I do not cover this okay water evaporates but flavor does not so it’s totally fine if not beneficial for this to dry out a little bit but anyway like I said we’ll let

That marinade for about 2 days at which point it’s ready to roast which hopefully will do in a nice big pan like this that has a rack in the bottom but if yours doesn’t don’t worry this will still work and what I like to do is scatter one sliced onion underneath the

Rack and then once those are spread out we’ll put the rack back on top and then once that’s been accomplished we can move on to prep any vegetables or potatoes we’re going to roast with our lamb and for this I decided to do some nice carrot chunks as well as some Yukon

Gold I cut in half and what I did is drizzle these with some olive oil and yes a lot of olive oil but you can’t really use too much and then I transferred in a whole bunch of minced up Garlic before seasoning with a generous amount of kosher salt and

That’s it we’ll go ahead and tosses thoroughly with our hand mixer and if you’re wondering why I did not use a bigger bowl that’s because I used it for the lamb so what I’m trying to say is despite my success online I only own one

Large bowl but anyway I got it done and once we do we can transfer that into the pan and arrange it around the outside around the outside around the outside and once we get all that situated and evenly spaced we’ll transfer our lamb in and we’ll make sure the fat side is up

So that it bits the meat while it cooks and once our lamb is in if we we have any open spaces we can move some of the veggies around okay we’re going to roast this at a relatively low temperature so if we have veggies that are all packed

Together in spots they may not cook all the way through so we will try to space things as evenly as we can and then one last quick thing before this goes in the oven what we’ll do is take a couple cups of chicken broth and we’ll pour it into

The bowl that our lamb was marinating and we’ll give it a quick whisk and then pour everything into the bottom of the pan since for this kind of a roast a moist cooking environment is an advantage oh and if you wanted you could use lambstock if you have it but you

Don’t and that’s it this is now ready to transfer into the center of a 475° oven but as soon as we close the door we’re going to turn the heat down to 300 and by the way if you’re going to forget to do that just start at 300 and

We’re going to roast that for about 2 and 1 half to 3 hours depending on the size or until we have an internal temp in the thickest part of 13 35 which after resting should give us a perfect medium and yes it does look amazing and

You want to start slicing in eating but we can’t we have to wrap this Loosely in foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes which will allow that internal heat to even out and some say for those juices to redistribute and while we’re waiting we

Can do a few things to get ready for service including transferring our vegetables into some kind of bowl or platter oh and you probably should those for dness and if they need a little more time you can crank up your oven to like 400 and toss those back in for a little

Bit while the meat rests and then as far as those gorgeous pan drippings go what I like to do is pour into some kind of measuring cup and then let it sit until that fat comes to the surface at which point it’s very easy to spoon off and while we could

Thicken that and turn it into a gravy it is extremely flavorful and I generally just like to spoon it over like this but anyway that’s going to be up to you I mean you are after all the Ray Davies of making gravies oh by the way fun fact he

Was actually shot once in the leg in New Orleans but anyway enough about his leg let’s get back to ours so I’m going to leave that way for the fat to fully separate and then once our leg is rested we’ll transfer that onto a cutting board and we’ll start cutting this into nice

Thin slices and in general the grain of the meat runs parallel to the Bone which is why we want to try to angle the knife a little bit so that we’re sort of slicing across the grain but this method produces meat so tender even if you did

Cut completely with the grain it’s still going to be pretty much melt in your mouth and it’s a little tough to see in this light and you’ll see it a lot better as we slice in further and especially when we play up but if you

Cook it to the temp I suggest most of this leg is going to be beautifully pink and juicy although near the bone it will be closer to medium rare and of course you people that like it well done can just take pieces from the outside in the less thick Parts but anyway I’m

Going to go ahead and stop and have a taste and that my friends with some of the most delicious juiciest most tender Lego lamb I’ve ever had and besides that two-day marinade the secret here is that nice slow roasting at 300 which results in extremely juicy meat that has a

Perfectly uniform dness where the outside and the inside have the same beautiful uniform pinkness which you can see a lot better here as I plated some up and like I said I just like this serve this with the natural cooking juices spooned over but of course I’m

Never saying no to a gravy oh yeah gravy does not take no for an answer but for me served just like this is pretty much roasted legol lamp Perfection and if you’ve tried to roast this cup before and did not have a lot of success this is absolutely the method you should use

And that is the case no matter how you season or flavor this right just because I went with this sort of central Mexican flavor profile does not mean you have to you you could simply use salt and pepper and the herbs of your choice and if you’re not into Citrus you could just

Use a little bit of vinegar and you will produce something just as stunning which reminds me if you’re not into the traditional plated sliced lamb may I suggest warming up some tortillas and then topping it with some sliced or diced roasted potato on top of which we

Will transfer that very same lamb only this time we cubed it up although slices will also work and then just like the plate we’ll top that with some of our panu at which point I finished very simply with some finely diced white onion into which I mixed a lot of fresh mint and

Cilantro oh and a pro tip I learned from Rick bis after cutting if you rinse your onions in cold water they get a lot more mild and that’s it I finished up with a squeeze of my Mexican lime and my Easter lme and potato taco was ready to

Enjoy and yes that was every bit as fantastic as you would imagine it would be and of course you could go straight for the tacos but the more standard scenario would be serve it sliced and plated first and then whatever leftovers we have we could reheat it and then dice

It and make tacos okay that’s probably the best game plan but no matter how you end up seasoning this or how many different ways you decide to serve it even though it takes a couple days this is an extremely easy way to cook lamb and I think you’re going to be very

Impressed with the results which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy