Tuesday 22 September 2015
When I first came across this recipe I understood it to be Italian in origin but it’s hard to think of anywhere around the northern coast of the Mediterranean where it would not be cooked on a regular basis: Spain, Portugal, France, Greece – lamb with garlic and rosemary would be equally at home in any of them so maybe one could describe this simply as Mediterranean roast lamb.
The important thing to optimise the flavour is getting the aromatics right inside the lamb and this is done with a sharp, thin-bladed, pointed knife. If you don’t have a knife with a sharp point on it or the blade is really broad, or worst sin of all, it is blunt, don’t waste your time with this dish. It will absolutely not work with a bread-knife – you have to use the right tool for the job!
Cut some cloves of garlic into strips or slivers – they can’t be too thick or they won’t fit in the little slits we’re about to make and they can’t be too thin or they won’t have the rigidity to be pushed in.
Push the point of the knife gently into the meat somewhere in the middle of the joint – doesn’t really matter where other than not over a bone! It needs to go in about 1-2cm (½-1″). Take a sliver of garlic and push the end of it into the slit as far as it will go.
About 2cm (1″) away push the knife in again and fill the slit with another sliver of garlic.
Then working round the joint to create a pattern, repeat this until the joint is thoroughly threaded with garlic to like this (below).
Cut the sprigs of rosemary into 2cm (1″) lengths. Push the stalk of a piece of rosemary into the same slit as each sliver of garlic. Joint should now look slightly forested like this
Place in an oven dish, season it well and rub or brush with olive oil and pour a glass of wine over it. Stick it in the oven and with a bit of luck it will come out looking like the one at the top of this post.
While the oven’s on, you can also bake some panadera potatoes (Panadera is just the Spanish word for baker rather like the French ‘boulanger’) to complete a wonderful Sunday lunch.
