Arrosticini
Abruzzese mutton skewers over charcoal
Around the Gran Sasso, arrosticini are narrow wooden skewers threaded with mature sheep meat and fat, cooked over a bed of embers. Their compactness is deceptive. The meat has to be cut small enough to cook before the fat runs away, but not so uniformly that it loses the rough, hand-made character that good ones keep.
The central ingredient is pecora or castrato: mature sheep with a deep, slightly mineral flavor, and it needs the white, firm sheep fat threaded through the skewer. The hot skewers are salted after cooking.
A fornacella is less a grill than a long, shallow coal channel. The wood handles rest beyond the heat while the meat hovers over a slim ribbon of charcoal, turning constantly until the edges catch and the centers remain juicy. The skewers are eaten in quick succession while the fat is still hot.
Ingredients
For the skewers
- 750 g(1 lb 10 oz)boneless mutton from mature sheep, preferably shoulder or leg, trimmed of sinew but not all surface fat (see note)
- 150 g(5 oz)firm raw sheep fat, chilled (see note)
- 40untreated wooden skewers, about 25 cm (10 inches) long, soaked in water for 30 minutes
- 6 g(about 1 tsp)fine sea salt
Kitchen notes
- Mutton
- Ask a specialty butcher for mature sheep meat, sometimes sold as mutton; castrato is the related adult-sheep category used in Abruzzo. This is not young lamb, whose mild flavor and softer fat make a different skewer. Use inspected meat and keep it cold while you cut and thread it.
- Raw sheep fat
- The alternating fat is structural: it renders over the small cubes and keeps mature sheep meat succulent. Ask the same butcher for firm fat from the sheep meat. Do not substitute bacon, beef suet, butter, or a bottled oil; each changes the flavor and the way the skewer cooks.
- Fornacella
- A standard grill can approximate the narrow coal bed with stable supports and banked charcoal, but it will not heat quite as evenly. Keep a small, hot batch moving rather than crowding the grate.
Method
Cut and skewer the meat
- Cut the chilled mutton and sheep fat separately into roughly 1 cm (⅜-inch) cubes. They do not need to be machine-perfect, but keep them close enough in size to finish together. Thread about 20–25 g of meat and fat onto each soaked skewer, alternating several lean pieces with small pieces of fat. Leave about 5 cm (2 inches) bare at the handle end and a short bare tip; the meat should occupy no more than about 18 cm (7 inches). Arrange the finished skewers on a tray and keep them chilled while the fire settles.
Build a narrow ember bed
- Light hardwood charcoal and let it burn until fully gray at the edges with no active flames. A purpose-made fornacella is ideal: fill its narrow channel with an even layer of embers. On a standard charcoal grill, bank the coals in a strip no wider than the meat portion of a skewer and set two stable, parallel grill supports so the handles stay well clear of the coals. The heat should be assertive but not violent; an exposed flame will char the fat before the mutton is ready.
Grill, turn, and salt
- Lay a small batch of skewers across the channel or supports. Turn them continuously or every 30 seconds, moving them along the ember bed if one area runs hotter, until the fat is rendered and sizzling and the mutton has browned edges without blackening, usually 5–7 minutes total. Do not cook them until the cubes become dry and hard. Transfer each hot batch to a warm platter, sprinkle with fine sea salt, and serve immediately while the fat is still fluid.