The best way to learn to cook is have a few cooking disasters. If my swordfish did not taste like a piece of rubber the first time I cooked it, I would have never found out the secret to keeping it moist. If my first couple of tarts weren't a soggy mess, I would have never learned how to achieve the crispy and flaky crust even with the wettest fillings. There are two ways to react to a cooking disaster -- swear to never make the dish again, or to make it again while mistakes are fresh in your mind, and not settle for anything but perfection. My last cooking disaster happened couple of weeks ago. I'd been itching to roast a leg of lamb for quite some time, but never got around to it. Since it takes at least 5 people to eat a leg of lamb, I never got a change to practice on Jason -- even he can't eat that much meat in one seating, and leftovers do not reheat well. When Jason told me that his cousin, aunt and uncle are coming to Boston for a weekend to check out colleges, I jumped at the opportunity. This was my chance to make a leg of lamb. My common sense told me otherwise. I've never cooked a big roast before; making it for company would be risky. But the visions of juicy rosemary and garlic scented lamb were hard to resist. After all, how hard could it be? All I had to do was season a piece of meat, put it in the oven, and get it out when it's done.

Seasoning was easy, I made a rub with rosemary, garlic, and lemon -- the traditional lamb flavorings. Putting it in the oven was harder than I expected. The problem was the temperature. I looked through several cookbooks and epicurious.com recipes and no one seemed to agree on the temperature at which to roast lamb. Julia Child started it at 450F and then turned it down to 350F. Jamie Oliver went at 425F the whole time. A Gourmet Magazine recipe went at 350F the whole time, and my friend Gwen, who is a restaurant cook, told me to roast "low and slow" at 325F. I followed my usual policy -- when in doubt, go with Julia. So I started my roast at 450F for 15 minutes, and then turned the temperature down to 350F. Then came the hardest part -- figuring out when to take it out. No one agreed on the timing either -- it ranged from 20 minutes per pound to 13 minutes per pound (medium rare) and it all depended on the temperature of the oven, the dimensions of the roast, and the whims of cooking gods. The only thing everyone seemed to agree on was that timing was not a reliable way to cook a roast, and that an instant read thermometer was necessary to determine when the roast was done. Since I recently purchased Polder's digital oven safe thermometer, I thought I was all set. I just had to figure out what temperature corresponds to medium rare. There again, no agreement was to be found. Temperatures for medium rare ranged from 120F to 145F. It was also not clear whether that was the temperature at which the meat should be taken out of the oven, or the temperature at which it should be carved. The reason there is a difference between the two temperatures is that the roast continues to cook after it's out of the oven. I decided to try 130F. I did everything according to my plan. When the roast reached 130F, I got it out of the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes. As it sat, it went up to 142F. The aroma was wonderful. The moment of truth arrived: it was time to carve the roast. As I cut into the meat, disappointment swept over me. It was medium well on the bottom part of the roast and well done on top. Since the leg is a muscular piece, cooking it that much makes it very tough. Well, at least mashed potatoes were good.

The next day, we took our cousin's family out for a nice lunch to make up for my cooking experiment. After they left, I bought another leg of lamb and gave it another shot. I knew that Jason and I would not be able to eat it all, but I just had to get it right. After some further reading on the web, I learned that starting a roast at 450F does not really seal in the juices as cooks used to believe, and sometimes results in unevenly cooked roast. This time, I decided to take my friend Gwen's advice and roast lamb at 325F the whole time to make it cook more evenly. Since my first attempt resulted in the top being done much faster than the bottom, I was looking for ways to remedy that problem. Jamie Oliver seemed to have a solution. He turns his lamb every half hour. The question of the internal medium rare temperature still remained. 130F was way too late to get the roast out. By the carving time, the roast was over 140F, and that's at the center. This meant that most of the meat was around 150F - 160F. I finally found the answer to my temperature dilemma in Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques. He cooks his roasts to 110F. I followed my new and improved plan, but when I got the roast out of the oven it was not browned at all. I wasn't sure whether to panic or not. I threw it under the broiler for 3 minutes to give it a more appetizing appearance and prayed. Then I waited in suspense for 15 minutes while the lamb rested and the juices got absorbed back into the meat. I got out my carving knife and held my breath. Slice -- the knife went through the lamb like through butter. Beautiful, pink, juicy slices started falling onto the plate. Jason smiled and said, "You should have cooking disasters more often."

Roast Leg of Lamb (Try 2) Recipe