Leg of Lamb With Garlic, Mint, Dijon

This is a take-off on Alton Brown's barbequed leg of lamb. I upped his spice paste quantity and let it sit overnight before roasting it, whereas he says the spice paste need only be on the meat as long as it takes charcoal to get ready. Either way, delicious!

• Ready In: 2 hrs 30 mins
• Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

• 1⁄4 cup Dijon mustard
• 10  garlic cloves
• 5  sprigs of fresh mint
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 (4 -5 lb)  leg of lamb

Directions

1. In a mini food processor, pulverize all of the ingredients, except the lamb, into a smooth, somewhat runny paste.
2. If your lamb leg isn't boned, remove all but the shank bone (lowest). There are some decent boning instructions and diagrams on the internet if you, like me, are new to this procedure.
3. Lay open the upper, meaty, sirloin portion of the lamb leg and rub the spice paste mixture into any and all crevices and flaps.
4. Using kitchen twine, shape the uppper portion into a compact roast--in my case I tied it about 5 times across the leg and 3 times lengthwise. I anchored the lengthwise threads by pushing them through a hole in the muscle attached to the shank (this is a testimony as to how much I hacked it up trying to get the bones out!).
5. Once it is all tied, roast-like, smear the spice paste all over the outside of the meat.
6. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
7. Remove lamb from refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
8. Position two racks in the upper third of the oven. When oven has come to temperature, oil the top rack, slide a rimmed baking sheet onto the bottom rack and drop the lamb onto the oiled rack. I guess you could use a roasting pan with a rack in it, but I don't have one.
9. Check after about 20 minutes, if outside is browning too quickly, lay a piece of aluminum foil over it or flip it over or both.
10. Roast until internal temperature reaches 140 degrees.
11. Let rest 15 minutes before carving.
12. My 4 to 5 pound lamb leg took about an hour and a half to reach the proper internal temperature.