Recipe: Leg of lamb with garlic, ginger and rosemary

My mother and I are very different people in the kitchen and in life, but whenever I am tossing and pinching my way to a meal, there are traces of my mother in every move.

When I was little, I watched mom pour over her dog-eared and splattered Joy of Cooking to double check the measurements for a perfect Yorkshire pudding. I can still see her hunched over her two-volume Gourmet cooking tomes researching the steps needed for an authentic cassoulet. Mom could cook like that and did for years. But at some point -- post-divorce, I believe -- she went free form.

The spice bottles and condiment jars started their own bebabadoba, and things were never the same in our kitchen. There was a prolonged tarragon phase – really, my mom can add tarragon to just about anything. Soy sauce, why not? Wine? Of course. Mango chutney anyone?

I learned to do the shake and sprinkle from her, but I’m more conservative and tend to stick to basic flavor palates – olive oil, crushed red pepper, anchovies, olives, and parsley, say. Or soy sauce, mirin, sake, dashi, sugar, ginger, lemon and scallions.

Not so my mom. She's been doing fusion since before fusion was cool. Sometimes things get a little bizarre. Often they are eye-opening delicious in a way that makes me reconsider what I know about flavors.

On Christmas, my mom set out to make a leg of lamb with a classic garlic and rosemary crust. Then she discovered that she didn’t have enough garlic. What she did have was a jar of ginger-garlic paste. The kind you might use to start an Indian curry. In went the spoon. On went the globs of ginger-garlic paste followed by a liberal amount of rosemary. When we arrived at her house, the scent of spiced lamb greeted us in the stairwell. I couldn’t place the notes at first. I only knew that this was one of the best things I’d every smelled coming out of my mom’s kitchen. Or any other kitchen for that matter.

The lamb was from my mother-in-law’s farm, tender and rich with just enough musk to make you think of a hay barn on a hot day. Ginger and rosemary are both naturals for lamb, but I’d never have thought to put them together. Each spice opens the flavor of lamb in its own way. Ginger rounds and deepens while rosemary adds tighter sharper accents. Together, they broaden the lamb’s flavor more than either could do on its own. Yeah, it was pretty much the best leg of lamb I’d ever tasted.

In fact, it was so good it made me plan my seder meal four months in advance. (We do the Jewish holidays in our house.) Usually, I’m more of the oh-crap, it’s-5-pm-and-I-have–company-coming type. But lamb like this can be transformative. I stocked up on ginger-garlic paste a month ahead of time. I remembered to defrost the lamb two days ahead. Really, I don’t know what came over me. I even checked and rechecked my rosemary supply.

The best part of this recipe is that it takes all of five minutes of work. Then you just sit back and wait for the aromas coming out of the oven to rearrange your personality.