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Inside-Out Lamb Persillade
Updated May 2, 2024
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- Total Time
- 1½ hours
- Cook Time
- 35 to 40 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- Butterflied leg of lamb, 3 to 4 pounds
- 2 to 3tablespoons olive oil
- 4cups parsley leaves
- 1tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 3 to 4cloves garlic
- 1teaspoon lemon zest
- Salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- Lemon wedges for serving
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Trim excess fat from lamb. In a food processor, make persillade by puréeing olive oil, parsley, rosemary, garlic, lemon zest and some salt and pepper.
- Step 2
Sprinkle lamb with salt and pepper on both sides, then turn so the side that had been on the bone, the one with the more irregular surface, is facing up, with the wider end facing you. Smear the surface of lamb with most of persillade mixture, then fold it in half (there will be a kind of natural hinge, as you’ll see) with persillade on the inside. Smear the remaining persillade on outside of the lamb and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Step 3
Put lamb in a roasting pan and cook for about 35 to 40 minutes for rare meat, or until an instant thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat reads 130 degrees, or, for medium rare, 135 degrees.
- Step 4
Transfer the lamb to a cutting board and let it rest for a few minutes; slice, and serve with fresh lemon wedges.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
My take on this has changed over the years; I now add anchovies and mushrooms for umami, and vacuum seal it for a day in the refrigerator. Then it goes into a 132 deg F water bath with an immersion circulator and cooks sous vide for 8 hrs. Out of the bag and into a 500 deg oven for 10 min finishes it nicely.
That's a shame. I have always found delicious and tender boneless leg of lamb at Costco over the years at reasonable prices. I cooked mine outdoors on the grill and it was spectacular. I let it rest a good twenty minutes before slicing, that gives the meat a chance to relax and retain all those delicious juices. Hope you will give it another try.
This lamb is always delicious and easy to prepare for a dinner party because you can do everything ahead. I stuff the lamb with the persillade and I find securing it with kitchen twine helps hold all of the rub inside. I let it sit to room temp before roasting. I take the roast out of the oven when internal temp reaches 100 and let it sit--I found that cooking it to a higher temp yields gray meat versus a pink & juicy roast. Temp continues to rise while it sits and juices release.
Cooked this dish as instructed to 130F for a dinner party. Terrific, perfectly cooked. Boneless leg of lamb from Costco was affordable and tender. Along with copious quantities of Rioja it was a memorable evening, beginning with Spanish tapas and ending with bread pudding. Made curried lamb stew with the remaining lamb.
If you're not a Costco member, I've had good luck with Trader Joe's boneless leg of lamb.
Trim lamb so it folds into a nice neat shape. 1/4 c EVOO, 4 fat garlic cloves, 2 well-trimmed Publix bunches parsley. Use preserved lemon instead of zest. There will be extra herb mix. Set some aside for a salad dressing or something before it becomes contaminated. 4.67 lb -- pkg wt -- piece took 1:05 to reach IT 138 on EGG with platesetter and Guru set at 425.
Excellent! Costco boneless leg, 5+lb --> 4 lb trimmed. Checked at 35 min, 41, took out at 43. "Sauce" great and easy. 4 bunches parsley. Could use more lemon IN it. Lemon wedges alongside were unnecessary. 3/2016.
Saturday night I made Inide-Out Lamb Persillade for our dinner club. I got a 4 pound butterflied leg of lamb from a specialty butcher chop here in Asheville, North Carolina. The lamb came from Wilkesboro, NC. I followed the direction exactly but since I like my lamb on the rare side I cooked it to 125 degrees. For a side dish I made Julia Child’s Tomates Å La Provençale. Unfortunately the lamb was not particularly tender and I was disappointed. It was an expensive meal. I’ll not make it again.
The BONE is the delicious basis of all of the leftovers. I recommend buying it with bone in, bone it yourself, roast the bone with the roast, ansd split it to release the marrow when you make the next dish. I believe that the bone (lamb, chicken, beef, pig, deer, rabbit, woodchuck, whatever) contribute flavor to the roast as well as to the dishes that follow. Bones are porous. And incredibly flavorful. Have you noticed all of the pricey "bone broth" boxes on the soup shelf lately?
I made this as per the directions with only one minor addition of fresh mint puréed with the persillade. It was excellent, company loved it and I’ll make it again. Thanks, Mark. Btw, just a head’s up: the video included in the recipe doesn’t go past Mark putting the parsley in the food processor.
This was delicious, and beautifully cooked as directed. I added a full tablespoon of lemon garlic salt to the persillade (Trinidad Lemon Garlic blend) and used it on the meat as well. I served it with vodka pasta, which was an unexpected great pairing!
The recipe says the butterflied leg will cook in about 45 minutes or so, yet every other source online I check says that even with butterflied leg of lamb, it's about 20 minutes per 500g for reaching RARE...which means 80 minutes of roasting time? I set the timer for 30 minutes and will check, but curious to see how it turns out. Gonna watch it like a hawk.
I am still a believer that you need to buy leg of lamb with the bone intact for a number of reasons, but when presented with a 6+ pound deboned leg this persillade based recipe was just the thing. I did however differ from the recipe with respect to oven temperature. Alexandra Stratou recommends a high of 340º for 2 hours (5.5 lbs.) to as low as 300º for "as long as you wish". Keeping this in mind allowed me to time the meal according to my guests variable arrivals.
Is there any reason one can’t make and smear the persillade on the lamb the day before cooking it?
This was quite easy and delicious, and perfect for a small Thanksgiving gathering. I used a Trader Joe’s boneless grass-fed lamb leg. My only complaint is that while in the oven it expanded and “unfolded” itself while cooking so I would either tie it together with twine to keep the shape intact or cook for less time, since mine got slightly overcooked as a result.
Dotto on that. Mine also unfolded and cooked unevenly.
Recipe doesn’t say if the lamb should be rolled back up into a roast or laid flat. The cooking time implies keep it flat.
It says to fold it in half. I'm making it tomorrow for Passover.
This was so very delicious! Followed the instructions (may have added a little extra parsley and rosemary) Was a big hit and so very easy to make. I am making again for Christmas.
5.25 lbs. lamb roast after trimming. Used 4 bunches of parsley, 5 large garlic cloves & lemon for Persillade. Tied Roast. Added Romano cheese & breadcrumbs to Persillade over fat cap. Cooked it at 385 degrees in a Traeger Smoker/BBQ. Removed from heat at 115 degrees. Took 1 hour 20 min. Rested 25 minutes until it hit 125 degrees. Sliced to perfect medium rare. Heated juices, scrapings & extra Persillade in a pan with 1 T. butter then poured it over the sliced meat. Lamb was a big hit.
Like many of Bittman's recipes, this one requires tweaking. The first time I made it, I heeded comments and stuffed and tied the meat, removed from the oven at internal temp of ~100F; degreased and reduced pan juices during resting time--perfect. Today's roast is 2 lbs. Improvised the persillade with leftover chimmichurri, more parsley, & garlic. Forgot lemon zest but added grated romano, plus fresh bread crumbs for the persillade on top. Fingers crossed!
Unfortunately, I fell for another of Bittman's gimmicky recipes and it just didn't work. The meat was bland in the interior and over-seasoned on the exterior, probably from the olive oil binding to the salt and other seasonings. And persillade, or at least this one, is not assertive enough to pair with lamb.
Easter winner 04032021! over 6 lb boneless leg, added 1/2 preseved lemon to the parsley. Cooked until 130 degrees but it was a little too pink in the middle for the older folks
This was spectacular as specified in the recipe. Perfectly done after 40 minutes and incredibly flavourful. Wouldn’t change a thing!
The flavor was great but the cooking instructions seem off. A 4-lb roast isn't going to cook to 130° in 35 minutes! I cooked until the interior read 120°, which took over an hour. After resting for 30 minutes the roast was actually a bit over-done. If I'd taken it all the way to 130° or 135° as instructed it would have been inedible. I should have taken it out at 100-110° as Mariam suggests in the comments and let carry-over heat take it the rest of the way.
so good
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