Serves 20 or more
Ingredients
- 1 whole lamb or hogget carcass (about 20kg/44lb)
- 100ml (3½fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil
- 500ml (17fl oz) hard cider
- 1 garlic bulb, cloves separated and peeled
- a large handful of rosemary
- a large handful of marjoram
- 150g (5½ oz) sea salt
- 25g (1oz) black peppercorns
Method
You don’t need a huge garden to set up a spit and cook a whole sheep, pig or deer. But you do need lots of friends around to help you eat all that meat, so have a think about the best place for a cook-out like this before you send out the invites.
You can buy ready-assembled spit-roast kits fairly easily. Alternatively, you could have someone handy make one for you, but I always like to knock mine up myself, out of strong lengths of green hazel. I know, you’d think it would burn, but as long as it doesn’t get too close to the fire it doesn’t. My set-up consists of two sturdy 2–2.5m (7–8 feet) uprights dug into the ground, which support the spit pole, on to which the lamb is fixed. This is probably 2.5–3m (8–10 feet) in length. I push the spit through the carcass and hold it in place with some long, thin metal spikes that I tap through a central pole. This stops the lamb sliding about as you turn the spit. It’s extremely useful to be able to raise or lower the lamb as it cooks, so I make sure there’s a heavy screw set at a 45° angle part way down each upright. Together they form a simple pair of brackets on to which the spit can be set down. I’d suggest setting up your spit in advance, so you’re all ready to go on the day. Make sure you’ve got plenty of dry logs on standby, too – it’s surprising how many you’ll get through.
A lamb is rather big and takes time to cook, so it’s a good idea to get things underway in the morning. The lamb will then be ready to eat by late afternoon. It’s also important to let the carcass come up to room temperature before you start cooking it. If it’s fridge-cold, it will take much longer. For this reason, collect or have the lamb delivered the evening before your feast. It won’t come to any harm in a cool kitchen overnight.
Get your fire going an hour before you start cooking. It needs to be long and broad, so the whole carcass cooks evenly. This means having a bed of burning wood and embers of at least 1.2 x 1m (4 x 3 feet). While the fire’s burning back, get the lamb trussed up on the spit. Make sure it’s nice and secure, otherwise the spit will turn but the lamb won’t. The lamb should sit about 0.5–1m (2–3 feet) above the fire. Be mindful that if the flames come into contact with the meat at any point, the meat will burn in seconds. Equally, if the carcass is too far from the heat or the fire’s not hot enough, it won’t cook at all.
On a blustery day, you’ll need to create some kind of windbreak to stop the heat being carried away before it reaches the carcass. Old sheets of tin roofing work well for this.
The fire needs to be hot to kickstart the cooking process, but remember: the hotter the fire, the more you’ll need to turn the spit, otherwise the meat will burn. It’s essential to drive some heat into the carcass early on. Once it’s sizzling away, you can slow things down and reduce the rotations. It’s at this point that I start basting the carcass, with a mixture of the extra-virgin olive oil and cider combined with 1 litre (35fl oz) of water that I’ve whizzed up with the garlic, rosemary, marjoram, salt and pepper. This mixture not only flavours the meat as it cooks, it also helps to keep it lovely and moist.
Accurate cooking will involve a combination of feeding the fire, rotating the spit, and adjusting its height accordingly. Pay particular attention to the shoulders and legs of the carcass, areas where the heat will take longer to penetrate. The way you manage the fire is key. However, remember that with this type of cooking, you’ll always find areas of the carcass that are cooked to a greater degree than others. This is part and parcel of the technique, and is nothing to worry about.
It’s easy to judge when the meat is cooked to your liking. Pierce the thickest part of the carcass with a thin knife to check its internal temperature. Leave the knife in situ for a few moments, then remove it and touch it to your lip. If it burns, the meat is cooked.
At that point, it’s time to take the lamb off the spit and carve it. There’s no ‘right’ way to do this, you just want to get that lovely, wood-roast meat off the bone and serve it while it’s still hot. It can be faster and easier if two people work together side by side. As long as your fire is still going and you can keep the meat warm as you carve, there’s no real need to rush. There are lots of delicious dishes in his book that would work well served alongside it, or you could try the ember-baked squash salad with kale pesto.
