Quick How-to on Lamb Skewer BBQing
Makes about 30 arrosticini skewers
By Nick Angelucci
One of my fondest memories is as a young teenager visiting extended family in Abruzzo, Italy, and enjoying a simple barbecue tradition called arrosticini. My uncles would take me down to a roadside cantina or a hilltop village trattoria, and we’d order these delicious morsels of smoky mutton on a stick.
I always seemed to miss out on the annual township festival dedicated to arrosticini over there, so when I’d visit, one of my uncles who lived in the countryside would slaughter a couple of his spring lambs and grill them up on his homemade charcoal braiser. He would grill the arrosticini on a barbecue that resembled a piece of roof guttering or narrow grill, and he used dry vine cuttings to create the hot embers to cook over. It always amazed me how simple yet addictive these lamb skewers were. My relatives still remind me about how many skewers I would eat in a sitting with fondness and laughter.
In Italy, most arrosticini are made from castrated hogget, but in Australia, the best alternative would be lamb shoulder. I get mine de-boned from the local butcher and cube and skewer the meat myself. To speed up the process and have more symmetrical skewers of cubed meat, I found an Italian skewer-making box that makes 100 raw arrosticini at a time. Skewers made in this box are easier to manage during grilling and, as they’re less likely to favour their heavier side, allowing for more even cooking.
Grilling is best done on a traditional narrow charcoal barbecue which has an 11-12cm-wide gap. This is so you can suspend the skewers directly over charcoal with only the meat exposed to the heat; this way, the bamboo ends don’t get too hot or burn.
Ingredients:
1kg de-boned lamb shoulder
Bamboo Skewers
Sea Salt
Optional lemon juice, olive oil or chilli flakes, added before serving
Method
1) Making these skewers is very straightforward. Pre-soak bamboo skewers at least an hour before barbecuing. The best length is 25cm-long skewers that you can pick up at any supermarket.
2) Cut the lamb into cubes approximately 14-15mm or the width of your thumb. Make sure you keep some of the fat from the leg. Skewer the cube meat and include some lamb fat in between the meat. Ideally, about a quarter of the meat should be fat. Leave roughly 1cm free at the pointy tip and about 10-11cm of meat on the skewer. The rest of the skewer becomes the handle so you can turn and pick them up in batches keeping your hands away from direct heat.
3) Place a thin layer of hot charcoal at the bottom of the BBQ then your skewers along the BBQ up close to each other and suspended above the charcoal. Make sure the heat is not high else you will get flare-ups that will burn your skewers.
4) As the fat renders, dripping should hit the charcoal and smoke back up. Turn each bamboo skewer until all sides are cooked.
5) Cook the skewers between 6 to 8 minutes depending how hot the charcoal is. Then add a generous serving of sea salt before taking off the grill. Serve with bruschetta or drizzle the arrosticini with some lemon juice and olive oil or sprinkle with chilli flakes. Eat immediately.