easter riddles

I would like to be one of those people whose favourite holiday is Easter. Easter is linked to so many beautiful traditions and rituals the world over. And now that Andrew and I are starting our life together, I wanted to start us off on our own Easter traditions.

But I don’t know what to do about Easter. There are no traditions from my childhood that really stand out, other than my mother’s progressive Easter egg hunts. The hunts started with a rhyming riddle to lead you to the first egg and the next riddle, going on like that until you ended up with the final, big Easter bunny. My mother’s rhyming couplets were always impressive, complicated things, making the hunts difficult and exciting.

Easter Sunday morning, still not having any very good ideas for special Emma-and-Andrew-Easter-traditions, I decided I might as well start off with a hunt, ala my mother. But as it turns out, I’m no good at getting riddles to rhyme. Not even that good at riddles themselves, either. To illustrate: “I’ll keep you warm when you cuddle on the couch.” We have a couch blankie. Of course Andrew got that within seconds. A few others were better, but only slightly. It was all over within minutes.

So that was the Easter egg hunt, and I was stumped as to what else to do to make Easter special, and ours. At a loss, I resorted to food, as usual. Nothing original – lamb is what everyone has for Easter around here. But it was special, because it was our first Easter together and, as it happens, our first leg of lamb together.

Now when the next big holiday comes along, I’ll see if I can do better to make it special. But really, roast leg of lamb did pretty well for us.

roast lamb for two, for easter

1 half-leg of lamb, bone-in, about 1kg

4 tablespoons olive oil

handful of thyme, picked and finely chopped*

handful of rosemary, picked and finely chopped*

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into chunks

2 small onions, quartered

1 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup red wine (I used pinotage)

sprig of rosemary

sprig of thyme

splash of port

First preheat your oven to 160 C. Take one tablespoon of the olive oil and rub it all over the fatty, "outside" bits of the leg of lamb - not the cut sides. Now mix the herbs, salt and pepper together and pat the mixture onto the fatty parts of the lamb. Put the leg of lamb in a roasting tray, with enough space around it for the sweet potatoes and onions. Toss the vegetables in the remaining olive oil and some more salt and pepper, toss them into the roasting tray around the lamb, and slide it all into the oven.

Now you wait; how long you wait depends on how pink you like your lamb. We like ours pretty pink, so it came out of the oven after 50 minutes. An hour and a half in the oven would give you well-done lamb, an hour and ten minutes, medium. Once you've roasted as ong as you like, take the lamb out and arrange it on a platter along with the vegetables.

Now you can make your sauce, while you let the meat rest. Put the roasting tray on a hot burner and add the stock, wine, sprig of rosemary and sprig of thyme. Let it all heat and bubble up, while you stir and scrape and loosen all the yummy caramelized lamb juices stuck to the bottom of the pan. When it has all cooked down and thickened a bit, splash in some port and cook for another minute or so. Take the pan off the burner, fish out the herbs, taste and season. You'll need quite a bit of salt, some pepper, and you might need some sugar. If it seems thin or watery, cook it down some more, but keep in mind that this is supposed to be a thinnish sauce, not a thickened gravy.

*You could also use oregano and marjoram, or any combination of rosemary, thyme, oregano and morjoram.