Lamb Roasted with Tomatoes & Orzo

Thinking about Greece for the next holiday and has fate would have it a brief wander around the local town the other day yielded two lovely Greek themed cook books from the local charity shops. One, "Culiniaria Greece", is a veritable tome on Greek cooking and lifestyle across it's many mainland & island areas, which will undoubtedly form the basis for our trip, but this recipe actually comes from the other book and was last Sunday's main course.

It's a sunshsine recipe and no mistake, and does capture something of the mediterranean and hopefully Greece in particular. You take a shoulder of lamb (unroll it if necessary) and flavour generously with salt, pepper, oregano, garlic and lemon slices. Roll up, tie, and pierce with garlic slivers (never really happy doing this bit, but hey ho I usually follow the recipe first time around at least), season and add a little olive oil. Now empty into a roasting pan a couple of tins of tomatoes, more garlic, a little water, a little sugar, more oregano, a bay leaf, seasoning and add the lamb. You're now ready for the oven.



Cook as normal for the lamb to start, i.e. 25 mins or so per pound depending how you liek it, but then (and I diverged from the recipe here a bit I'll admit) when you take the lamb off to rest add a bit more (boiling) water to the roasting pan and at least two good handfuls or orzo, which here means the pasta shaped like rice (or even barley) and not barley itself. This cooks in the sauce for the last 15-20 minutes or so whilst your meat rests.



Not too bad at all on the whole, although I could perhaps have increased the sugar and the seasoning in general but very tasty none the less. I've always liked lamb and lemon and it went particularly well here, and of course here you get pretty much everything you need in one dish bar a green salad on the side.



Not sure I'll be rushing back to this recipe, but I'm sure with one or two tweaks we'll be doing it again. Just made for hot summer days I reckon.