New Season Leg of Lamb, Studded with Anchovy & Rosemary
There’s a short window in May and June when British lamb is at its very best — sweet, grassy, almost delicate. This is the roast that shows it off.
Our 7-day dry-aged leg of lamb gives new season meat just enough hang time to deepen its flavour without losing the delicacy that makes early summer lamb so special. The anchovies disappear into the flesh as it roasts — what you taste isn’t fishiness but a deep, savoury hum behind the meat. Serve it pink, with a rough broad bean smash, and you have one of the most British roasts of the year.
The leg of lamb is one of the most versatile and forgiving roasting joints on the animal. It comes from the hind leg — the muscle that does most of the lamb’s walking and standing — which means it has structure, intramuscular fat, and a generous fat cap on top. Bone-in is the right call here: the femur conducts heat to the centre of the meat as it cooks, giving you a more even result, and it adds a quiet richness to the pan juices that boneless joints simply don’t deliver.
When you’re choosing a leg, look first at the colour. New season British lamb should be a pale rosy pink, not the deep cherry-red you’d see on older hogget or mutton. The fat should be firm, white, and waxy — not yellow, which signals an older or grass-poor animal. The aroma should be clean and almost sweet; anything sharp or sour, walk away.
Our 7-day dry-ageing is a deliberate, light touch — enough to concentrate the flavour, draw a little moisture out, and let the natural enzymes start tenderising the muscle, but not so long that you lose the youthful character of new season meat. For mature flavour we’d age 21 or 28 days. For new season, less is more.
- 1 leg of lamb, bone in (≈2kg)
- 8 anchovy fillets in olive oil
- 4 sprigs rosemary, leaves stripped
- 4 cloves garlic, halved lengthways
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 lemon, zested
- 250ml dry white wine
- Flaky sea salt & black pepper
- 600g podded broad beans (or frozen)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lemon, juiced
- A small handful of mint, torn
- 100g feta (optional)
- Take the lamb out of the fridge 90 minutes before cooking — a cold joint will roast unevenly. Preheat the oven to 200°C fan / 220°C / gas 7.
- With a small sharp knife, make 16 incisions about 2cm deep all over the leg, spacing them evenly. Halve each anchovy fillet. Push a half anchovy, a few rosemary leaves and a sliver of garlic into each slit, pressing them well in.
- Rub the leg with olive oil and lemon zest, then a heavy hand of black pepper and a light scatter of salt — remember the anchovies are salting from the inside.
- Sit the lamb on a rack in a roasting tin (fat-side up, bone parallel to the tin’s long side). Pour the wine into the base. Roast for 20 minutes at high heat to set the crust.
- Drop the oven to 170°C fan / 190°C / gas 5 and roast for a further 50 minutes for a 2kg leg cooked pink — internal temperature 55°C at the thickest point, away from the bone. Add 8 minutes per 500g for more done.
- Lift the joint onto a board, tent loosely with foil and rest for at least 20 minutes — this is when the muscle fibres relax and the juices redistribute.
- While the lamb rests, blanch the broad beans in well-salted boiling water for 2 minutes. Refresh in iced water and slip them out of their pale skins (a fiddly job, but it’s the difference between elegant and rustic).
- Crush the beans roughly with a fork, leaving plenty of texture. Dress with the olive oil, lemon juice, torn mint, a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Crumble feta over if using.
- Carve the lamb against the grain into generous slices. Tip the resting juices and pan juices back over the meat.
- Serve with the broad bean smash spooned alongside, and the pan juices in a small jug for drizzling.
Three techniques are doing the heavy lifting here. First, the anchovies. Anchovy fillets are roughly 20% glutamate by weight — the same compound that gives aged Parmesan, dry-aged beef and ripe tomatoes their deep savoury hum. Buried inside the meat and roasted at high heat, they melt completely. What you taste isn’t fish — it’s a rounder, more meaty version of the lamb itself.
Second, the two-stage heat. The opening 20 minutes at 220°C drive the Maillard reaction across the surface — that sticky, mahogany crust where amino acids and sugars caramelise. Drop the heat and the interior cooks gently and evenly without overshooting. Cook the whole thing at high heat and you’d get a leathery exterior and grey rim; cook it all low and you’d get a pale, sad-looking joint.
Third, the rest. Muscle fibres tense up under heat, squeezing their water inwards. Twenty minutes off the heat lets them relax and the juices redistribute throughout the meat. Slice too soon and a third of the moisture ends up on the board.
If you can’t get a leg, shoulder of lamb works beautifully — it just needs a longer, slower cook (3 hours at 150°C) and you’ll lose the rosy pink interior. A butterflied leg cooks in about 35 minutes total and is excellent for the BBQ or a hot grill if you want a faster version.
No anchovies? Substitute miso paste (about 1 tsp white miso per 2 fillets) for the same umami punch without the marine note. Capers or finely chopped olives add a similar salt-savoury hit. Strict vegetarians omit them altogether and increase the salt by half a teaspoon.
For broad beans out of season (they’re really only May to early August), use a 50/50 mix of frozen peas and frozen broad beans — the colour stays bright and the flavour comes through. In autumn, swap the smash for braised butter beans with rosemary; in winter, a deep root puree of celeriac or parsnip is the move.
For a Greek-inflected version, add dried oregano to the anchovy stud and finish with a squeeze of lemon and a scatter of crumbled feta. For Italian, push in fresh sage with the rosemary and serve with a salsa verde rather than the broad bean smash.
The lamb can be studded with anchovy, rosemary and garlic up to 24 hours ahead and kept loosely covered in the fridge — this actually deepens the flavour, as the anchovy starts to permeate the meat. Bring back to room temperature for at least 90 minutes before roasting. The broad beans can be blanched and skinned a day ahead; dress only when ready to serve so they don’t go grey. Leftover lamb keeps three days in the fridge and is exceptional the next day, sliced thin into a flatbread with yogurt, mint and a quick salad of cucumber, lemon and red onion.
- Roasting from cold. A leg straight out of the fridge will be raw at the centre while the outside is overdone. The 90-minute room-temperature rest before the oven isn’t optional — it’s the single biggest determinant of an even roast.
- Skipping the rest. Twenty minutes feels indulgent when you’re hungry and the kitchen smells incredible, but it’s the difference between juicy and dry. Use the time to make the broad bean smash and pour drinks.
- Carving with the grain. Lamb leg has muscle fibres that run lengthways. Slice with them and the meat eats stringy; slice firmly across, perpendicular to the grain, and every mouthful is tender.
A bone-in leg cooks unevenly — the thin end finishes first. Sit the joint with the thicker end towards the back of the oven (the hotter spot in most domestic ovens) for a more even result. And rest it longer than you think.
Wine: Chinon (Loire Cabernet Franc) — redcurrant and herbal notes mirror the rosemary.
Beer: A British best bitter or a Belgian saison — yeasty foil to the lamb fat.
Non-alcoholic: Pomegranate spritz with mint and lemon.
This is a roast that doesn’t need much around it. Good roast potatoes — Maris Pipers, par-boiled and finished in goose fat or beef dripping at 200°C — are the natural partner. Add a bowl of bright greens (purple sprouting broccoli with chilli and garlic, or asparagus simply blanched and dressed with butter), some crusty bread for the pan juices, and a small jug of mint sauce or salsa verde for those who like the extra punch. Skip gravy here — the pan juices and the broad bean smash are doing the work.
How long should I rest a leg of lamb after roasting?
Twenty minutes minimum for a 2kg bone-in leg. Tent loosely with foil to keep the warmth in without trapping steam, which would soften the crust. Resting lets the muscle fibres relax and redistribute their juices — skip it and you lose roughly a third of the moisture as the slices hit the plate.
Can leg of lamb be cooked medium-rare or rare?
Yes. Aim for an internal temperature of 55°C at the thickest part of the meat, measured away from the bone, for true medium-rare. Lamb is more forgiving than beef because the connective tissue is finer. Anything over 70°C and you start to lose the silkiness; under 50°C and the fat hasn’t rendered properly. A digital probe thermometer is the single most useful tool here.
Why use anchovies in a lamb recipe? Will it taste fishy?
No, and that’s the trick. Anchovy fillets are roughly 20% glutamate by weight — the same savoury compound found in Parmesan, aged beef and tomato. Pushed inside the meat and roasted for an hour at high heat, they dissolve completely, leaving behind a deep, rounded umami hum that tastes meatier, not fishier. It’s a technique used by every French and Italian chef who knows their lamb.
What’s the difference between new season and regular lamb?
New season lamb refers to animals born in late winter and slaughtered between April and July, before they’re a year old. The meat is paler, sweeter, more delicate, and with less fat than older lamb (hogget) or mutton. Older lamb has its own virtues — deeper flavour, more marbling — but new season is the cut to pick when you want the meat to taste of spring grass and milk.
Should I cover the lamb with foil while it’s roasting?
No — only during the rest. Covering during roasting traps moisture, steams the surface and prevents the crust from forming. The point of the high-heat initial blast is to drive a dry Maillard reaction across the meat — that’s what gives you the mahogany exterior. Save the foil for the resting stage, and even then tent it loosely rather than wrapping tightly.
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