Dinner last night was a tiny boneless organic leg of lamb (less than 2 lb), roasted with onion, shallot, lemon quarters, prunes, and green olives, after Mario Batali (from Molto Italiano). I didn’t have time to marinate because Jeremy was craving lamb, so I just seasoned it aggressively inside and out, trussed it, tossed it on the roasting pan with all those lovely additions with squeezes of lemon and drizzles of white wine and olive oil, and chucked it in the oven for around an hour at 375F until it temped out at medium done.

After getting the lamb going, I put together a panful of Molly Stevens’ braised leeks and bacon (from All About Braising), and got that in the lower rack of the oven at the same temp. I did a variation with a bit of cream added in the last 15 minutes or so, and popped our leftover celeriac-potato latkes in to reheat when the roast came out to rest before slicing. The timing worked out perfectly for all three items, and it was a lovely dinner that took a bit under 2 hours to prepare start to finish. The lamb was very tender, if not strongly flavored (but the accompanying jus and roasted “accessories” helped in that arena). I was surprised by how sweet the leeks were, and thought afterwards I should have added a bit more salt and maybe some lemon juice for acidity. They were tasty, though, and meltingly soft, if a little slippery underfork. I made extra leeks, and plan on using them to make the bacon-leek tart that Molly suggests for the leftovers.