Abbacchio

Young lamb roasted hard with rosemary and garlic, finished with anchovy melted into the pan juices.

Lamb, Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, lamb.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg young lamb, shoulder or leg, in large pieces on the bone
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, unpeeled and crushed
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 200 ml dry white wine
• 4 anchovy fillets in oil
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Method

1. Pat the lamb dry and rub it with the oil, salt and pepper. Dry meat browns; wet meat steams, and there is no recovering the first ten minutes.
2. Put it in a roasting tin in one layer with the garlic and two sprigs of rosemary tucked underneath. Roast at 220C for 20 minutes, turning once, until it has taken colour.
3. Pour the wine in, drop the heat to 180C, and roast another 45 minutes, basting twice. The wine should reduce to a few spoonfuls of syrupy juice.
4. Chop the anchovies with the leaves from the remaining rosemary until they are nearly a paste.
5. Lift the lamb onto a warm plate. Put the tin over a low heat, add the anchovy and rosemary with the vinegar, and stir for a minute, scraping the base.
6. THE ANCHOVY GOES IN OFF THE HIGH HEAT AND AT THE END. Roasted with the lamb it turns bitter and fishy; melted into warm pan juices it disappears and leaves savour behind, which is the point of it.
7. Pour the pan juices over the lamb and serve.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes