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Leg of Lamb
(Agnello all'Orientale) This is a way to cook lamb in use in the Orient and adopted by the Italians, especially in Southern Italy. The leg of lamb is to be larded with the larding pin with slices of bacon seasoned with salt and pepper, greased with butter or milk, or milk alone and salted when half cooked.
The Arabs, who are very fond of this dish, do not lard it, as pork is forbidden by their religion, but cook it with an abundance of milk.
The instructions here are a sketch rather than a procedure: no oven temperature, no timing, no quantities. What follows fills in the gaps a modern cook needs, without changing the method.
- The hinge: milk, applied constantlyThe hinge: milk -- The milk here appears to function as a basting/cooking liquid rather than a marinade; the recipe says the joint is greased with butter or milk, or milk alone, and that Arab cooks use it in abundance. Milk's sugars and proteins brown readily, so keep the pan from going dry or the residue will scorch and turn bitter.
- Larding pinA larding needle is a hollow or grooved spike used to thread strips of fat through the interior of a lean joint. If you have none, cut narrow slits with a thin boning knife and push in batons of pancetta or fatty bacon with your finger.
- "Bacon" hereThe Italian behind this was most likely lardo or pancetta, i.e. cured pork fat, rather than smoked American breakfast bacon. Unsmoked pancetta keeps the flavour closer to what the author probably intended.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A leg of lamb of this kind is best started at 425F for 20 minutes to set the surface, then dropped to 325F for the remainder.
- Timing and donenessReckon roughly 15 minutes per pound at 325F after the initial blast, and go by a thermometer in the thickest part away from the bone: 130-135F for pink, 145F and above for well done. Rest the joint 15-20 minutes before carving.
- Salting when half cookedThe recipe salts the joint at the halfway point rather than at the start; why is not explained. Salt the larding fat as directed, then season the surface once the leg has browned.
- The pan juicesThe reduced milk will separate into curds and browned fat. Skim the fat, loosen the sediment with a little water or white wine, and strain ethat is the sauce.
- YieldA whole bone-in leg runs 5-7 lb and serves eight to ten.
Agnello all'Orientale — "lamb in the Eastern manner" — carries its own explanation in the headnote: the author presents it as an Oriental method adopted by Italians, especially in the south, and notes that Arab cooks omit the pork fat their religion forbids and rely on milk alone. Sicily was under Muslim rule from the ninth century, and Arab influence is often traced in the region's sweets, rice dishes and use of lamb; cooking meat in milk is a technique found in various forms around the Mediterranean and the Levant, milk's proteins and sugars browning readily in the pan.