Taste Trip in Greece

Passport & Plate - roast lamb

Greece | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 4 photos

Ingredients
a hole lamb about 10-15 kgs
salt
black pepper
3 cloves of garlic
a flaked onion
oregon
butter
2 small branches of rosemary
a juice a lime

 

How to prepare this recipe
You put a steal spit through the hole lamp. Then you apply the butter on the outter and inner flesh and in the stomach. You make a mixure with the salt and the pepper and you apply it on the flesh, again on the inner and outter surface. We use the butter in order to stick the mixure. In the stomach we put the cloves of garlic and, hole flaked onion and one or two small branches of fresh rosemary. Then with a vegetal line we tie tight the lamb on the spit and we sew the stomach in order to keep all the ingredients we have put in and all the liquids during the roasting. We have already put fire on the grill and we put the spit with the lamb over middle-hit coals. For the first hour we assemble the coals at the legs and at the shoulder of the lamb. Then we spread the coals in order to cover the hole surface of the lamb and we keep stable temperature! We adjust the hight between the coals and the lamb according to the roast and we wheel the spit during the hole roasting.In a bole we mix salt, pepper, water and the juice of a lime and during the cooking we put the mixure on the skin of the lamb with a brush. After 3 to 4 hours of cooking the lamb is ready. You can serve it hot or cold with all types of mustard or with a traditional greek sauce called tzatztiki(yogurt,garlic,cucumber) and you spread over it oregon if you want. Bon appetite.

 

The story behind this recipe
Dear Sir/Madame,
Although my recipe doesn’t have special ingredients and a fabulous way of cooking, it still has a lot of history behind.
Easter is one of the most important ceremonies in the Orthodox Church which is full of local customs and traditions! Here in Greece after 40 days of fasting (a diet without organic food like meat, milk, eggs etc. only vegetables) we use to eat lamb or goat on Easter Sunday.
It is a custom which especially takes place at the central and southern Greece and in many islands of my country! The origin of this technique comes from the ancients years when people, who were living in the countryside or in poor rustic regions, didn’t have sophisticated equipment like ovens. Moreover meta was a very expensive food, only consumed on special occasions.
They ate lamb or goat only in very special occasions like Easter, as I mentioned, and important name ceremonies and if there were plenty of animals to use for food! Thus, this technique was a very simple way to cook the meat. They digged a pothole in the land, they lighted fire, they put the spit through whole lamb and placed it over the charcoal fire. Then they turned it for almost 3-4 hours until it was cooked.
Nowadays, this traditional way of cooking is taking place in many areas or in houses which have the required space capacity or barbeques. All this procedure, the preparation, the cooking and the meal at the end is a reason for “party” and a reason for a family to be connected! All these preparations usually take place at the houses of the elderly members of the family or at the countryside where many people are assembled and they cook their lambs or goats all together like a feast!