Recipe: Boneless Roast Leg of Lamb with Feta Cheese, Olives, and Baby Eggplant

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Boneless Roast Leg of Lamb with Feta Cheese, Olives, and Baby Eggplant
from Michael Lomonaco at Porter House New York

Ingredients:

  • 8 to 10 small baby eggplants or Italian eggplants, scrubbed clean under cold running water, halved lengthwise
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • 1 leg of lamb, 7 to 8 pounds, deboned and butter flied
  • 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
  • 1 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, tightly packed
  • 3 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • ½ pound Greek feta cheese, crumbled
  • ½ pound Kalamata or other Mediterranean-style ripe black olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons rosemary needles, broken by hand
  • Juice of 1 lemon

Special Equipment:

  • Metal skewers and butcher's twine to pin and tie the leg of lamb

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Season the cut-sides of the eggplant with salt and pepper and drizzle 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over them. Set aside.
  2. Lay the butter flied leg of lamb flat on a work surface, fat-side down. Pound the lamb with a meat tenderizer to flatten it to an even thickness of about 1 ½ inches.
  3. Put the breadcrumbs, parsley, garlic, feta, olives, rosemary, ¼ cup of the olive oil, and the lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and pulse together to make a stuffing for the lamb. Spread the stuffing evenly along the center of the inside of the leg of lamb. Roll the lamb into a cylinder shape, sealing the stuffing within. Pin the roll closed with skewers and tie the roll at 1-inch intervals with butcher's twine so that it does not open during cooking.
  4. Season the outside of the lamb with salt and pepper and drizzle it with the remaining olive oil. Put the lamb, seam-side-down, in a roasting pan with a rack. Put it in the oven and roast for 45 minutes. Add the eggplant to the roasting pan, skin-side down. Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted to the thickest part of the leg reads 130°F, approximately 35 minutes more.
  5. Remove the lamb and eggplants from the oven and allow the roast to cool for 20 minutes before slicing.
  6. When ready to serve, remove the skewers and string and cut the rolled leg at a slight bias into thick slices. Divide the lamb and eggplant evenly among 6 to 8 dinner plates and serve.


Serves 6 to 8


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