Aotearoa and Australia · Volume 04, The Roast, the Dairy and the Corner Shop
Lamb Sunday roast, with kumara and pumpkin
New Zealand
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 2 hours
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
New Zealand's own additions to the British roast, kumara and pumpkin standing in for potato and parsnip, are received convention rather than a precisely dated tradition; no source found gives an exact date for when they became fixtures.
As tradition built it
Serves 6. About 1½ to 2 hours, plus resting.
Ingredients
- 1 leg or shoulder of lamb
- 6 small to medium kumara, peeled and cut for roasting
- 750g pumpkin, cut for roasting
- to taste other roasting vegetables, to taste
Method
- Roast a lean leg of lamb hot, 230°C for the first 15 minutes, then reduced to 175°C, around 25 minutes per 450g to medium-rare (42°C rare, 58°C medium-rare, 68°C medium-well); roast a fattier shoulder continuously at 160°C for longer, to render the fat.
- Rest 15 minutes before carving.
- Parboil kumara for 4 to 5 minutes, then roast at 180°C for 15 to 20 minutes.
- Roast pumpkin and other roasting vegetables alongside, to taste.
What a modern chef changes
Indirect heat, then a fast direct-heat crust
This chapter's own technique work, applying Rung 1.
Method
- Run a Big Green Egg indirect at 120 to 130°C until the leg or shoulder sits just under its target internal temperature, rather than roasting at a single oven setting throughout. Rung 1.
- Rest fully under foil, then finish over direct high heat for under two minutes a side, for a genuine crust decoupled from the cooking itself. Rung 1.
- For shoulder specifically, sous vide at 58°C for several hours before the same direct-heat finish, tenderising the collagen-rich cut evenly in a way a timed oven roast cannot guarantee.
Notes
No properly sourced, named-chef elevated whole lamb roast was found in this research; this is the chapter's own technique work.