Preheat the oven to 425°. Place the roast in a heavy baking pan. With the point of a knife, puncture the lamb in about 12 places, making 3/4-inch-deep slits, and push the garlic into them. Sprinkle the meat with the salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Roast the lamb for 30 minutes, then turn the meat and roast for another 30 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the meat is about 120°.

Pour out most of the fat from the pan, leaving about 1 tablespoon in the bottom of the pan. Stir the chicken stock into the fat and drippings left in the pan and return the meat to the oven for 5 minutes to cook the sauce. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the meat to rest for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. At serving time, slice the meat and serve it with the sauce.

Tips from Chef Jacques

Try to get a roast that is plump and round so it will yield slices of equal size. The ones I usually use are about 6 inches long and 5 inches in diameter, and the roasting time given below produces medium-rare meat. If your roast is of slightly different dimensions, or if you prefer your lamb cooked more or less, adjust the cooking time accordingly—keeping in mind that the amount of time you let the meat rest after cooking is important too. A roast like this one needs to rest for at least 15 minutes to be appealingly pink throughout. If need be, it can be kept for as long as 45 minutes to 1 hour in a 140° oven before serving.

Excerpted from Jacques Pépin Quick & Simple © 2020 by Jacques Pépin. Photography © 2020 by Tom Hopkins. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.