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Rosemary
(Arrosto morto coll'odore dell'aglio e del ramerino) Cook the meat as above, but add a clove of garlic and one or two bunches of rosemary in the saucepan. When serving the roast rub the gravy through a sieve without pressing and surround the meat with potatoes or vegetables cooked apart.
The leg of lamb comes very well in this way, baked in the oven. 132
This is a variation, not a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have the preceding arrosto morto in front of you, which is meat browned in oil or butter with a little salt and pepper and then cooked slowly, covered, in its own juices with a splash of broth or water added as it reduces. The rosemary and garlic are the whole point of the variation.
- "Arrosto morto" is not a roast"Arrosto morto" is not a roast in the modern sense -- The name means "dead roast": meat cooked in a covered pan rather than in the open heat of an oven, though the recipe itself allows the oven for a leg of lamb. Use a heavy pot just large enough to hold the meat and low heat; a 3-4 lb piece will likely want an hour and a half to two hours.
- Rosemary in bunches, not chopped"One or two bunches" most likely means whole sprigs, stems and all, laid in the pan and lifted out later; chopped needles would be far harder to retrieve, and the sieve step keeps woody stems and the spent garlic off the plate.
- The garlic stays wholeA single unpeeled or lightly crushed clove perfumes the fat without dominating it. The original calls for one clove only, and doubling it would change the character of the dish.
- Sieve without pressingThe hinge of the recipe. Pour the pan juices through a fine sieve and let them fall through under their own weight. Pressing forces through emulsified fat and rosemary debris and turns a clear, glossy gravy cloudy and resinous.
- If you use the ovenThe original gives no oven temperature. A moderate oven, around 325-350F, with an uncovered or loosely covered pan and basting from the pan fat, is a reasonable modern equivalent. Modern practice takes lamb to about 130-135F internal for pink, 145F for medium; the period expectation was probably a good deal more done.
- Vegetables cooked apartDeliberate, not an oversight. Potatoes boiled or roasted separately keep their edges and do not release starch into the small quantity of gravy. Dress them with a spoonful of the strained juices at the table.
- YieldA leg of lamb of 4-5 lb serves six to eight; a 3 lb piece of beef or veal treated this way serves four to six.
Arrosto morto is one of the foundation techniques of Italian home cooking, and the variations here reflect how an Italian kitchen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries actually cooked large pieces of meat: on the hearth or stovetop in a covered pot, since a domestic oven capable of true roasting was far from universal. The garlic-and-rosemary version is Tuscan in spirit; rosemary (ramerino in the Tuscan form used in the original title, against the standard rosmarino) grows as a hedge plant across central Italy and is the herb most consistently paired with lamb and pork there.