by pierino
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Food52's Testing Notes:
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Expand2 ½ pound boneless leg of lamb. It’s pretty easy to bone out yourself if you are so inclined and you can put the bone to other uses but otherwise ask you butcher Ask a question about this ingredient
7 or 8 blood oranges (tarocchi) Ask a question about this ingredient
1/4 cup red wine, preferably Sicilian Ask a question about this ingredient
1/2 cup Sicilian olives (big fat ones, I used a combination of black and red) Ask a question about this ingredient
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese divided (that would be two ¼ cups if I have my math right) Ask a question about this ingredient
1 cup fregola grassa (sardegnan couscous) Ask a question about this ingredient
1 medium red onion Ask a question about this ingredient
1 bunch mint, the freshest you can find Ask a question about this ingredient
1 clove garlic Ask a question about this ingredient
Sea salt (of course) Ask a question about this ingredient
Ground black pepper to your taste Ask a question about this ingredient
Extra virgin olive oil Ask a question about this ingredient
Pit the olives and chop them roughly, this will be for the filling
Ask a question about this stepOpen up the lamb and with a very sharp knife cross hatch the meat without going through to the skin. Season with salt and pepper. Add the olives and a portion of the feta and spread over the interior surface
Ask a question about this stepCut a single length of kitchen string, long enough to tie up the whole piece of lamb in a jelly roll form (you know how to do this right? Be sure to keep your seams straight)
Ask a question about this stepCut the garlic into slivers. With a sharp knife put some small slits into the lamb. Lard with the garlic slivers.
Ask a question about this stepSeason generously with more sea salt Heat your oven to 350˚ to 375˚ (you decide)
Ask a question about this stepPeel and thinly slice the red onion. Oil a roasting pan and cover the bottom of the pan with the onion slices
Ask a question about this stepJuice all but two of the blood oranges. You will need about ½ cup of squeezed juice. In a small sauce pan combine the orange juice and the wine and heat up slowly. You will want to keep this warm on a burner (maybe over a flame tamer) for the duration
Ask a question about this stepBaste the lamb with the warm juice and wine mixture---I assure you will be fragrant. Place the lamb in the oven. Allow about 1 to 1 ½ hours cooking time. Baste every twenty minutes. Check the lamb temperature with an instant read thermometer. When it hits 140˚ remove the pan and tent with aluminum foil. Let this rest for ten minutes. Personally I don’t like lamb “well done.”
Ask a question about this stepWhile the lamb is roasting/resting prepare the couscous to package directions. Chop up a big old handful of fresh mint. Throw some of that on top of the lamb while it’s still tented. Peel the remaining two oranges and cut them into segments (supremes).
Ask a question about this stepTo plate, carve the lamb, spoon out couscous and top that with crumbled feta and more chopped mint. Garnish with blood orange segments.
Ask a question about this stepJust for fun I resubmitted this one. None of us knows what the theme will be from week to week. So repetition is, I suppose, inevetible.
Just saw your recipe and appreciate the remarks about New Zealand lamb. Married to someone who loves lamb, we have been disappointed the past 18 months or so in Costco lamb - which used to be tasty. A butcher told me that the animals are so domesticated that the game taste has disappeared. I now patronize a local butcher and pay more but the stuff is good. I will ask where it originates. Thanks -
Nicely done!
Ah! A modern day Padraic Colum. (For those of you parents of kids aged four or older, consider reading aloud Colum's "The Children's Homer," "Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy," and "The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles." Very few pictures, but Colum's clear but elegant writing style makes them unnecessary. I read all three at least twice, cover to cover, because my sons liked them so much. It's among the best children's literature ever written.)
This recipe is not for children.
But then I grew up with the original text of Pinocchio. Not the Disney version. Collodi makes the fox and cat some pretty bad actors, and the cricket gets killed.
That said, Homer is pretty cool. I love the names like "Apollo Shoot a Far".
This sounds amazing, the blood orange glaze sounds sublime
To be honest I was concerned about how the blood orange juice would hold up against the wine in the reduction, but it held it's fragrance the entire time and the sugars came out like street walkers.
This sounds fantastic and I love fregola! Definitely going to have to try it!