This right here is a result of a Meat Alert, just in case you were wondering. As you’re all aware of, last Tuesday MeatHenge Labs received an email from Fatted Calf announcing we had about 24 hours to put in our order for Agnello Ripieno. It’s a lamb roast filled with Nicoise olives, orange zest and fresh pork sausage, yum. The tough part was waiting until Easter Sunday to roast it.

I ordered a few and picked one up for Emil first thing Saturday morning at the Berkeley Farmer’s Market. I hauled over 18 lbs of meat that fine sunny morning, man I was in heaven. If you’re interested in stopping by for your own meat packages, I would suggest getting there as close to 10am as possible. It’s spring time and the market is substantially busier than it was a few months ago. Jan over at the Blue Bottle Coffee Company stall has a whirlwind of people, coffee cups & bags of beans going all day long.
Kim mentioned as I left with my two cloth bags brimming with meat that I should brown the roast first, then put in a roaster with a mixture of broth & wine. Preheat the oven to about 350 for an hour or so. The roast ended up taking maybe 2.5 hours, but that worked out just fine for us.
Sunday afternoon arrived and it was time to get to work on the roast. Since we weren’t having company I started it later in the day, more for a sit down time of 6pm instead of 3 or 4. I called my sister to see how her Agnello Ripieno was going, she started it earlier. She said since they didn’t have a roaster large enough, they had to use a large dual burner cast iron griddle. Well, my roaster IS large enough to brown the roast first, but it is a non-stick rig. There is just no way I could do a decent browning with non-stick. I think my sister’s idea was best, use the cast iron griddle.
I slathered the roast with extra virgin olive oil and a load of fresh thyme & rosemary. Little bit of kosher salt with a grind or three of black pepper.
Once this was done I stood back and admired the roast. Taylor and his gnomes really put the touch on this baby. The butcher’s twine was tight and evenly spaced. Both ends were tucked nicely and there was a nice slab of fat on one side (cook facing upwards). The symmetry was perfect. One side of the roast just a little larger, this way someone who likes their roast a little on the rare side can have what they require (that’s me).

Instead of doing it on two burners, I pulled out my chrome griddle and replaced it with the cast iron one (no cool spot in the center from using two separate burners).
Yank on high and wait until it is smokin’.

Since ‘bits’ splattered everywhere isn’t what I enjoy cleaning up, a cardboard screen was fashioned in about 4 seconds. Man, that cast iron griddle REALLY did a great job of very quickly browning the roast. The smells coming from the herbs & meat were wonderful. The house was filled in about 5 minutes with real Love. I may end up browning my roasts like this in the future, the larger ones anyway.

Here we see it going in …
Kim mentioned to add moisture to the roaster and just lay it on the bottom. I figure, if I’m going to have wine and broth in there I will add some onion, carrots & mushrooms. A nice cabernet seemed to do well this time. It was all good to go.

… and here we see it coming out.
The beast took a bit over two hours. I started checking the temp at 1.5 hours. I pulled it when the internal temp read about 150 to 160k, then put it on a cutting board with a loose foil tent. MAN THE HOUSE SMELLED SO GOOOOOOOOOD. Just like a real holiday or something. Wow.
With the meat out of the way it was time to make some sauce/gravy. I strained the juice in the roaster. This left me with a fair amount of liquid and it tasted just fine the way it was. It didn’t need salt or pepper er nothin’.

Juice strained and a few teaspoons of corn starch dissolved in cold water first, POW. Sauce. Simmer for a few seconds until thickened.

Sliiiiicey slice that roast. The smells in the house were amazing. Not only do you get the heady rich steam from the making of mashed taters, but now the gravy was absolutely pungent with richness. All the while the roast is sending forth lamb goodness. This my friend, is a very rich and wonderful meal about to happen.

fini