Reverse-Sear Steak Is Great, but Reverse-Sear Lamb Is Better
The reverse sear is not a new technique: The lower-and-slower approach has been popular for close to 20 years. It’s most commonly used to cook thick steaks and chops, but I’m still finding new ways to use it. Once you’ve mastered the reverse seared steak, you’re ready to graduate to the reverse seared roast, specifically this Reverse-Sear Leg of Lamb.
What is reverse sear?
For some time, the conventional, agreed upon way to cook a steak was just the opposite of this technique. You’d start by giving the meat a hard sear to create a beautifully browned crust that would “lock in the juices”; then you’d transfer the meat to an oven to bring the center up to the target temperature. Even beyond the fact that searing does nothing to prevent moisture loss, thick pieces of meat cooked this way often exhibited a noticeable gray band just underneath the surface of the crust.
Flipping the order of operations gets you a more evenly cooked piece of meat, with little to no gray band. Starting with a gentle, indirect heat source (like an oven set to 250℉) lets the interior warm gradually and evenly, rather than shocking it with a sudden blast of direct energy by way of conduction (e.g., a ripping hot pan). Once you’re about 15 degrees shy of your target temp, you can brown the exterior while carrying it over to a perfect medium-rare (or whatever level of doneness you desire). Another bonus is that going low and slow in the beginning dries out the surface of the meat, allowing for a better sear.
How to scale up your reverse sear
Roasts are, by their very nature, quite thick, and benefit from a gentle energy transfer even more than filets and ribeyes.
This garlicky leg o’ lamb isn’t seared in a pan, but we do apply the same principles to get similar results. Instead of searing the lamb all over and transferring it to the oven, we slow-roast it until just shy of perfectly done, then jack up the oven temp and blast it with high heat for browning.
To further help the meat cook evenly—and to flavor it inside and out—we free the boneless leg of lamb from its netting and rub it all over with a paste of oregano, rosemary, fennel seeds, peppercorns, pepper flakes, garlic, and honey (which helps create a bit of caramelization in the crust). We then roll it back up into its original shape and secure it with twine to create a uniform roast.
Don’t forget the potatoes
The lamb may be the star here, but the potatoes threaten to overshadow them. Sliced Yukon Gold potatoes go into the roasting pan under the lamb, along with some lemon halves, where they soak up the drippings and get beautifully browned on the outside. The lemons caramelize in the pan, and their juices are used as a finishing touch for both meat and spud.
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.
And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.
Claire Lower
Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.
