Abruzzese Lamb Skewers | Arrosticini Abruzzesi
Arrosticini are the smallest serious dish in Italian cooking. A wooden skewer about eight inches long, threaded with twelve or thirteen cubes of sheep meat roughly one centimetre on a side, with cubes of pure white fat pushed in between them. Nothing else: no marinade, no herbs, no garlic. Salt goes on at the fire, and the whole thing cooks in three or four minutes over a narrow trough of glowing charcoal.
Everything good about them is decided by two choices: the size of the cube and the violence of the fire. Small cubes with fat between them cook through before they can dry, and the fat melts into the lean meat as it goes. A fierce short fire scorches the outside while the centre stays barely pink. Cook the same skewer slowly and you get a strip of grey leather on a stick, which is what most people outside Abruzzo have eaten.
They are counted, not plated: five a head is a taste, fifteen is dinner, and you eat them standing, pulling the meat off with a folded piece of oiled bread. What follows is the real method, including why the iron brazier called a canala exists at all.
Yield: 24 skewers, 4 servings. Prep: 45 minutes. Cook: 4 minutes per batch, about 20 minutes in all. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo or street food. Region: Abruzzo, the Gran Sasso and Voltigno highlands.
The Story
Abruzzo is a region of mountains and sheep, and for centuries it was the northern end of the transumanza, the migration that walked enormous flocks down the drovers' tracks to the plains of Puglia in autumn and back to the Gran Sasso pastures in spring. The shepherds ate what the flock could spare, and a flock never spares the young animal worth selling. It spares the old ewe past breeding and the mutton nobody in a market wants. Arrosticini are built on exactly that meat.
The version we eat now is dated to the 1930s in the Voltigno, the high plateau above Villa Celiera in the province of Pescara, where the story says two brothers cut up an old goat with a knife, threaded it onto twigs and cooked it over charcoal because there was no other way to make the animal edible in a hurry. The local name is rustelle, from the verb for roasting. Whether or not the brothers are historical, the shape of the story is true: this is recovery cooking, invented where the kitchen was not.
The original animal is pecora, adult sheep, or castrato, the castrated male, whose fat is sweeter and whose flavour is deep and frankly gamey. Lamb came later and is what most restaurants use now, milder and easier to sell. The brazier is a canala: a narrow iron trough about four inches wide and as long as you like, so the skewers lie across it with the meat over the coals and the bare handles hanging clear. Bread rubbed with oil, cold beer and a jug of Montepulciano complete the picture, and in the villages of Pescara and Teramo it has not changed in ninety years.
Ingredients
For the meat
Boneless lamb or mutton shoulder and leg, mixed, 2 lb (900 g) after trimming
Hard white sheep fat, kidney or covering fat, 5 oz (140 g)
Coarse sea salt, about 2 tsp (12 g), for finishing only
Freshly ground black pepper, optional, to taste
For the skewers
Flat wooden skewers, 8 in (20 cm), 24
Cold water, for soaking the skewers
For serving
Rustic country bread, thick slices, 8
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Hardwood or olive wood charcoal, about 4 lb (1.8 kg)
Preparation
Step 1
Choose and trim the meat. Buy boneless shoulder and leg and use both: the shoulder brings fat and flavour, the leg brings clean lean cubes that hold their shape. Castrato is the traditional choice and tastes strongest, pecora next, lamb the mildest. Trim off silverskin, gristle and any grey dry edges, and keep every scrap of firm white fat aside separately. Put the trimmed meat in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes: stiff at the surface, not frozen through.
Step 2
Cut by hand into one centimetre cubes. With a thin sharp boning knife cut the meat into slabs about half an inch thick, then into strips, then across into cubes of roughly 1/2 inch (1 cm). Weigh one: about 1/4 oz (7 g). Cut the reserved fat the same size. A knife gives clean square cubes that stay square on the skewer, which is what the machine in Abruzzese butcher shops also produces. What you must not do is tear the meat or cut thin slices: a slice has no interior left to stay pink.
Step 3
Soak the skewers and thread them. Leave the wooden skewers in cold water for at least 30 minutes while you cut, since dry wood over a charcoal trough burns through in about a minute and drops the meat into the fire. Leave a clear 2 in (5 cm) at the bottom as a handle and push the cubes on packed close but not crushed. Count as you go: twelve or thirteen cubes of meat, with one cube of fat after every second or third piece of lean, and one near the top where the heat is fiercest. A finished skewer carries about 1 1/4 oz (35 g) over roughly 4 in (10 cm).
Step 4
Get the fire right. Fill a canala, or any narrow deep charcoal trough, and let the coals burn down until they are covered in grey ash and glowing red underneath, with no flame at all. Flame scorches the handles and deposits soot; embers radiate. The bed must be deep enough to be fierce and the meat close, about 2 to 2 1/2 in (5 to 6 cm) above the coals. Hold your palm at that height: two seconds and no more.
Step 5
Cook fast and turn constantly. Lay the skewers straight across the trough, packed side by side so they almost touch, which is how they help each other cook and how the fat drips onto the coals. Turn them every 30 to 40 seconds: total time is 3 to 4 minutes, four at the most. You want dark scorching on the corners of the cubes while the centre stays just pink. The moment the fat stops running and the meat looks uniformly grey you have gone too far, and nothing brings it back.
Step 6
Salt, wrap and serve at once. Salt the skewers generously with coarse sea salt the second they leave the fire, while the surface is hot and slightly wet so the salt sticks and dissolves. Stand them upright in bundles of five or six, wrapped in paper around the meat to hold the heat, and carry them to the table immediately.
Plating
There is no plating in the restaurant sense. Arrosticini go to the table in bundles, mazzetti, standing upright in a tall glass or a terracotta jug, wrapped around the middle in paper so the meat keeps its heat while the handles stay clean to hold. Count them out rather than portion them: five a person as a starter, twelve to fifteen as a main. Never spread them flat on a cold plate, which loses the temperature the whole method exists to deliver.
Alongside, bread slices brushed with olive oil and warmed at the edge of the coals. The bread is a tool as much as a side: fold a slice around three or four skewers, close your fist and pull, and the meat comes off in one movement while the bread takes the fat and the salt. Coarse salt, a dish of oil, and cold Montepulciano in small tumblers.
Professional Technique
The entire technique is one idea: a very small cube of lean sheep meat with a cube of solid fat beside it, cooked by a very short blast of very high heat. The cube is about 1/2 inch (1 cm) because that is the largest piece that can take a scorched exterior and still keep a centre that has not overcooked. Make the cubes twice the size and the outside must burn before the middle is warm.
The alternating fat is a self basting system, not seasoning or decoration. Meat off an adult sheep is lean and its fibre is tight, so it has almost no internal reserve of moisture to lose. The cubes of hard white fat, pushed in every second or third piece, render in the first minute over the coals and run along the skewer and over the lean cubes touching them, lubricating the meat as it cooks. That is why a skewer of lean meat only comes off dry however carefully you watch it, and why the fat must be spread along the whole skewer instead of grouped at one end.
The fire is the other half and it has to be brutal and brief. The surface must scorch in the first ninety seconds while the centre is still climbing, which needs radiant heat from a deep bed of embers at close range, not the gentle convection of a covered barbecue. Three to four minutes, turning every thirty seconds. Cook an arrosticino slowly and you have a shoe sole on a stick: the fat renders out completely and drips away, the fibres contract and squeeze out what little moisture they held, and the cube ends up grey, tough and faintly livery. There is no recovering it, which is why the person at the canala does nothing else while the skewers are on.
Texture and Moisture Control
Because the cube is only a centimetre through, heat reaches its centre in well under two minutes, so the whole difference between juicy and ruined is about sixty seconds of fire. Judge by the corners and by the fat: the corners dark and slightly crisp, the surface glossy with rendering fat, and a cube pulled off the end and cut open still pink at the middle. When the skewer stops glistening and the drips stop hissing on the coals, the fat has gone.
Salt timing controls moisture as much as the fire does. Salting an hour ahead draws water to the surface, and wet meat steams instead of scorching, so the crust never forms. Temperature afterwards matters for the same reason: a hot arrosticino has soft rendered fat in it and eats tender, while a cooled one has fat set hard and waxy and meat that has tightened. Cook in batches of six or eight and send each out as it comes off.
Professional Mise en Place
Arrosticini are entirely front loaded. All the cutting and threading happens before the fire is touched, and once the coals are ready the cooking is continuous.
Equipment and tools
Canala or narrow deep charcoal trough, about 4 in (10 cm) wide
Thin sharp boning knife and a large chopping board
Chimney starter and hardwood or olive wood charcoal
Flat wooden skewers, 8 in (20 cm), soaking in cold water
Cold trays, paper for wrapping, long tongs, brush for the bread
Prepared ahead
Meat trimmed and cubed, up to 1 day ahead, covered and refrigerated
Fat cut into cubes and kept separate, chilled and firm
Skewers threaded, up to 4 hours ahead, on a cold tray under film
Bread sliced, oil in a bowl, coarse salt in a second bowl
Service setup
Coals lit 30 minutes ahead, burned down to grey ash with no flame
Threaded skewers out of the refrigerator 15 minutes before cooking
Salt, tongs and wrapping paper within reach of the fire
One person at the canala doing nothing else, turning every 30 seconds
Plates and glasses already on the table, because the skewers do not wait
Chef Tips
Ask the butcher for the covering fat and the kidney fat of the same animal, and refuse pork fat as a substitute. Sheep fat melts higher and tastes of the dish; pork fat renders too fast, runs off early and leaves a note that fights the mutton.
Chill the meat hard before cutting and sharpen the knife halfway through the job. Cold firm meat cuts into clean square cubes; meat at room temperature drags and tears, and a torn surface releases juice before it ever meets the fire.
Cook them packed tight and touching rather than spaced out. A crowded canala holds its own heat, the skewers shield each other's handles, and the dripping fat creates the small aromatic flare ups that give arrosticini their smell.
Count what you need and then add half again. Nobody eats five. In Abruzzo they are ordered by the dozen and the dozen goes in about four minutes, so plan fifteen a head and cook in continuous batches.
Common Mistakes
Cutting the cubes too large. Anything much over 1/2 inch (1 cm) cannot scorch outside and stay pink inside, because the fire needed for the crust will have cooked the centre grey. Weigh a cube: about 1/4 oz (7 g), cut by knife so the shape stays square.
Cooking them slowly. A low fire, a covered barbecue or a grill pan renders the fat out and produces the tough grey strip that makes people ask what the fuss is about. Fierce fire, meat close, four minutes.
Threading lean meat only. Without cubes of hard sheep fat every second or third piece there is nothing to baste the lean meat as it cooks, and an adult sheep has no moisture to spare. Skewers of pure muscle come off dry however carefully you turn them.
Marinating or salting in advance. Arrosticini are not marinated, and salt an hour early pulls water to the surface so the meat steams instead of searing. Oil, wine, garlic and rosemary belong to other lamb dishes.
Using dry skewers. Wooden skewers straight from the packet burn through in about a minute over a charcoal trough and the meat ends up in the coals. Soak them in cold water for half an hour.
Letting them sit before serving. Once cool the rendered sheep fat sets hard and waxy and the meat tightens, and reheating fixes neither. Cook in small batches and send each one out straight away.
Wine Pairing
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC: The house red of the canala and the only obvious answer. Medium to full bodied, dark cherry and plum, with a ripe but genuinely present tannin that scrubs the melted sheep fat off the palate between skewers. Moderate acidity keeps it drinkable by the tumbler. Serve it cool, around 60°F (16°C).
Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC: The same Montepulciano grape bled off its skins after a few hours, giving a dry rosato with real colour and weight. Its acidity is sharper than the red's and it cuts the fat of mutton cleanly without adding tannin to meat that is already charred. Chilled to 54°F (12°C) it handles the smoke better than any white.
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Colline Teramane DOCG: The serious bottling from the hills behind Teramo, longer aged and firmer, with denser fruit and a tannic grip the basic DOC does not have. Keep it for skewers of castrato or older pecora, where the meat is frankly gamey and the iron note needs a structured red. Serve at 62°F (16°C).
Tintilia del Molise DOC Rosso: From the high vineyards just across the southern border, an almost forgotten grape giving a medium bodied red of black pepper, wild scrub herbs and sinewy tannin. That herbal edge lines up with the pasture flavour of adult sheep, and the bright acidity stops a run of fatty mouthfuls from turning heavy.
Biferno DOC Rosso: A Molise blend built on Montepulciano with Aglianico and a little Trebbiano: savoury, rustic, medium bodied, with a faintly bitter finish that reads directly against the scorched corners of the cubes. Honest cheap wine in the best sense, and the right register for food eaten standing up.
Storage & Reheating
Raw is the only useful way to store arrosticini. Threaded uncooked skewers keep on a cold tray, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, and they freeze very well: lay them flat and separated, freeze solid, then stack them in a sealed bag with paper between the layers for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and never cook them from frozen, because the outside chars before the centre thaws.
Cooked arrosticini do not keep and do not reheat. The rendered fat sets hard as they cool and the cubes tighten, so a reheated skewer is tough and tastes of old fat. If some are left, strip the meat off the sticks while it is still warm and use it cold the next day inside oiled bread, or chop it into a pasta sauce with tomato and chilli. That is a different dish, and a decent one.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings of 6 skewers each:
Calories: 520 kcal
Total Fat: 38 g
Saturated Fat: 17 g
Trans Fat: 0.6 g
Unsaturated Fat: 19 g
Cholesterol: 145 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 1 g
Fiber: 0 g
Total Sugars: 0 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 42 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, vitamin B12, niacin, selenium, phosphorus
These figures are estimates for the skewers alone and exclude the bread and the oil. A great deal of the fat renders onto the coals rather than being eaten, so the real figure is lower than the raw weights suggest.
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