Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Roasting tin with a wire rack
• •Butcher's string
• •Sharp carving knife

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the stuffing

   Melt the butter in a small pan over a gentle heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook it slowly until it's soft and translucent, five minutes or so. Add the garlic for the last minute, stirring it through until it loses its rawness and the kitchen smells warm and savoury. Tip the lot into a bowl with the breadcrumbs, parsley, rosemary, thyme, and lemon zest. Season generously with salt and pepper. Add the beaten egg and mix with your hands until everything holds together loosely. It shouldn't be a paste. You want it crumbly but cohesive, something that stays where you put it when you press it gently.

   Day-old bread makes the best breadcrumbs. Tear it into chunks and pulse in a food processor, or grate it on the coarse side of a box grater. Supermarket breadcrumbs from a packet will work, but they won't taste of much.
2. 2

   Prepare the lamb

   Lay the boned breast of lamb skin-side down on a board. If your butcher hasn't already, trim away any thick seams of hard fat, but leave a good layer. That fat is going to render in the oven and baste the meat from the inside. Season the exposed flesh well with salt and pepper. Spread the stuffing evenly over the meat, leaving a finger's width clear at the edges so it doesn't squeeze out when you roll.

3. 3

   Roll and tie

   Starting from the shorter end, roll the breast up tightly, tucking the stuffing in as you go. Don't worry about perfection. It's a forgiving process. Tie the roll firmly with butcher's string at two-inch intervals, snipping the ends. It should look like a small, slightly rustic bolster. Rub the outside with olive oil and a good scattering of salt.

   If you haven't tied a roast before, don't overthink it. Simple knots at regular intervals, pulled snug. The string just needs to hold the roll together while it cooks. It doesn't need to look professional. It needs to hold.
4. 4

   Roast low and slow

   Set the oven to 160C/140C fan. Place the lamb on a wire rack over a roasting tin, seam-side down. The rack matters because it lifts the meat out of the fat as it renders. Put it in the oven and leave it alone for two hours. No opening the door. No basting. The fat will do its work quietly. After two hours, the meat will be tender and the outside will be pale gold and slightly yielding.

5. 5

   Crisp the outside

   Turn the oven up to 220C/200C fan. Roast for a final twenty to thirty minutes until the skin goes deep golden and properly crisp, the kind of surface that crackles when you press a knife against it. You'll hear the fat spitting. The kitchen will smell of roasted lamb and rosemary and something deeply Sunday, even if it's a Tuesday. Take it out and rest it on a board, loosely covered, for fifteen minutes. The resting is not optional. The juices need time to settle back into the meat.

   Pour off the rendered fat from the roasting tin and keep it in a jar in the fridge. Lamb fat is extraordinary for roasting potatoes. It lasts for weeks and makes ordinary spuds taste like something from a better kitchen than yours.
6. 6

   Carve and serve

   Remove the string and carve the roll into thick slices, each one showing a spiral of herb-flecked stuffing inside the tender meat with its rim of golden, crisp fat. Serve on warm plates with whatever feels right: roasted roots, braised greens, a simple gravy made from the pan juices and a splash of stock. There are few better feelings than putting a warm plate of this in front of someone on a cold evening.

Chef Tips

• •Ask your butcher to bone the breast for you. Most will do it gladly and it saves you the trouble of working around the ribs yourself. Keep the bones for stock if they'll give them to you. A lamb stock made from those bones, some root vegetables, and a few hours of patience is a fine thing to have in the freezer.
• •The lemon zest in the stuffing isn't decoration. It cuts through the richness of the lamb fat and lifts everything. Don't skip it. A lemon costs pennies and earns its place here completely.
• •This is a patient dish, not a difficult one. The oven does the real work. Your job is the stuffing, the rolling, and knowing when to turn the heat up at the end. Trust your nose. When the kitchen smells deeply of roasted lamb and herbs and the fat is spitting in the tin, you're close.
• •Serve it with something sharp alongside. A mustardy green salad, braised red cabbage, or just a spoonful of good mint sauce. The lamb is rich. It wants contrast on the plate.

Advance Preparation

• •The stuffing can be made the day before and kept covered in the fridge. Bring it to room temperature before stuffing the lamb.
• •The lamb can be stuffed, rolled, and tied up to a day ahead, kept wrapped in the fridge. Take it out an hour before roasting to let it come to room temperature.
• •Leftovers are good cold the next day, sliced thinly and eaten in a sandwich with pickles and mustard. Possibly better than the first evening, though I've never been able to say that out loud at the table.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 235g)