Easter Dinner

Easter is a time of feasting and celebrating and Easter dinner is the time to break away from the winter doldrums with lamb or ham.

It is Traditional Either Way

There are myriad stories explaining why lamb or ham is the traditional Easter dinner entrée. Most of the legends stem from pagan rituals, but they all seem to come down to the fact that after a long winter of eating stored grains and preserved foods, the peasants wanted something tasty to eat to celebrate the end of winter and the start of spring. This was either a ham or lamb.

Now that Easter Dinner is celebrated just about everywhere, the question that most families end up asking is "ham or lamb?" While ham tends to be the more popular tradition, lamb has its fans as well. In my family, it was almost always lamb for Easter.

Easter Dinner

While you can grill your lamb, you can also bake it in the oven. This recipe does not need the leg of lamb to be butterflied and, in fact, I believe that the bone adds flavor to the meat. If, on the other hand, you happen to have a butterflied leg of lamb, you can always just run some fresh rosemary and garlic through your food processor with some olive oil and spread the herb mixture on the inside of the butterflied leg of lamb. Then, just roll it up and tie it off with butchers twine.

Roast Lamb

Ingredients

• 1 4-pound leg of lamb
• 4 cloves of garlic
• ¼ cup of lemon juice
• ½ stick of butter, melted
• ½ cup of water
• 1 large onion, Julianned

Instructions

1. Wash and dry the leg of lamb thoroughly.
2. Cut four slits in the leg of lamb and insert the garlic cloves into the slits.
3. Mix the melted butter and lemon juice together and rub the mixture over the leg of lamb.
4. Liberally salt the lamb and place on a rack in a roasting pan.
5. Pour the water into the roasting pan and add the onions.
6. Cover the roasting pan with foil.
7. Bake in an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees for 2 hours
8. Remove the foil and increase the temperature to 375 degrees.
9. Cook uncovered for 30 minutes more.