Cooking with Colm O'Gorman: Slow-roast, spiced leg of Irish lamb with Muhammara

"...roasted slowly at a low heat, and so tender you could carve it from the bone using a spoon. It is a very simple recipe; all that is required is to make up the paste and slather it over your leg of lamb..."

Slow-roast, spiced leg of Irish lamb with Muhammara: a Middle Eastern take on an Easter favourite

A roast leg of lamb at Easter is as traditional as chocolate eggs. If I am honest, I prefer the lamb to the chocolate. Irish spring lamb is a phenomenal ingredient. At Easter time, a roast leg of lamb is always on the menu in our house. I usually keep it very traditional; the lamb studded with garlic and rosemary and roasted until it is crisp on the outside but pink and tender inside and served with roast potatoes, freshly made mint sauce and all the trimmings.

This year will be different though. As regular readers of this column will know, at a time when we cannot travel, I am instead cooking more and more food from other places. It brings much needed variety when life is so restricted. Instead of a traditional roast leg of lamb, I will be making a beautiful Middle Eastern inspired version, served with a wonderful dip called Muhammara and a few other sides. Muhammara has a similar texture to hummus, but is made using roasted red peppers and walnuts, flavoured with pomegranate molasses, lemon, and garlic.