Paul Flynn’s roast leg of lamb with creamy pesto tomatoes

Paul Flynn’s roast lamb with pesto tomatoes is surprisingly straightforward and comes with plenty of wow factor. Plus, there’ll even be leftovers for tomorrow.

Paul Flynn’s roast leg of lamb with creamy pesto tomatoes
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

for the lamb

• Fresh Irish half-leg of lamb
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped roughly into large chunks
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp herbs de Provence
• freshly cracked salt and pepper

For the pesto tomatoes

• 500g cherry vine tomatoes, cut in half
• 150ml double cream
• 2 tbsp basil pesto

Method

1. Preheat oven to 185?C/gas mark 4.
2. Make some incisions in the lamb with a sharp knife and push the garlic chunks into them. Drizzle oil over lamb before sprinkling herbs de Provence evenly over meat, followed by salt and pepper.
3. Place in the oven for 30 minutes to roast. After 30 minutes, reduce oven temperature to 175?C/gas mark 3 and continue to cook meat a further 20 minutes. Then leave to rest for 15 minutes in a warm place – and you should have perfectly pink lamb.
4. Meanwhile, place tomatoes cut-side-up into a baking dish, pour over cream and place in the oven for 30 minutes, after which time the tomatoes should be cooked through and cream should have reduced. Fold in pesto and serve with sliced lamb.

Extracted from Paul Flynn’s Family Food.