Arrosticini

Small cubes of mutton on skewers, grilled over a narrow trough of coals and seasoned with nothing but salt.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 800 g mutton or hogget shoulder, with its fat
• 2 teaspoons flaky salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 20 wooden skewers, soaked
• bread, to serve

Method

1. Cut the meat into cubes of about 1 cm, KEEPING THE FAT AND ALTERNATING IT with the lean as you thread. The fat is not trimmed and not avoided: it bastes the lean over a very short cook, and a skewer of pure lean meat comes off dry.
2. Thread 8 to 10 cubes tightly onto each skewer so they touch. Gaps let the heat at the sides of each cube and dry them.
3. Brush very lightly with oil. No marinade, no herbs, no garlic — mutton has a flavour of its own and this dish exists to taste of it.
4. Get coals properly hot and grey. These need fierce direct heat for a short time, not a moderate grill.
5. Lay the skewers close together over the coals with the meat spanning the gap and the bare ends resting on the sides, so the wood does not burn.
6. Grill 3 to 4 minutes in total, turning every 45 seconds. They should char in places and still give.
7. Salt them as they come off, not before — salt drawn out over a long wait leaves the surface wet and it will not char. Eat them straight from the skewer with bread.

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