Janice Tripepi

I served the left overs on rolls for lunch.

This Roast Lamb and Pastina dish falls fairly and squarely into the “Man food” category.  When it’s cold and miserable outside the smell that wafts through your home while this is in the oven is warm and happy and incredibly comforting.

Arrosto di agnello con la pastina is perfect for a weekend lunch or dinner in winter. It needs a little tender loving care and plenty of time but delivers chunks of lamb that can be eaten with a spoon it’s so tender.   All of the sauce ingredients are chopped up nice and small so that, once the meat is cooked you are left with a pot of deliciously flavoured sauce in which to cook the pastina.

Pastina literally just means, little pasta, it comes in various shapes and is most Italian babies’ introduction into the wonder world of pasta.    Again, left overs of this dish could be used to stuff ravioli, panzerotti or used in some suppli or Arancini as they appear on most restaurant menus these days.

The Tripepi boys swooped down on this meal like Japanese Kamikaze pilots which didn’t give me any time to style a plate and attempt to get a good
pic for you.  Some meals just have to be more than a blog post, don’t they?

 Arrosto di agnello con la pastina.

The Lamb and Pastina are served in one large bowl.

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees.

Ingredients

1 leg of lamb – the leg I used was 1,8kg

Olive oil or duck fat

3 onions chopped finely

12 cloves of garlic

500ml of red wine

3 carrots chopped finely

3 sticks of celery finely chopped

2 bay leaves

Rosemary – at least 5 long sprigs

2 stock cubes

Black pepper

4 small cans of peeled tomatoes – liquidised.

Water

1 x 500g packet of Rosmarino Pastina

Method

First you need to prepare the meat for the pot.  Using asharp pointed knife cut incisions into the skin of the roast on both sides.

 Poke you finger into the holes and open them
up and put salt, pepper, half a garlic clove and a tuft of rosemary into each hole.

Do this on both sides of the roast
and insert some in between the mussels inside the roast by opening them up from
the side.

Heat enough duck fat or olive oil to cover the base of the pot, brown the roast on all sides and set aside.

In the same pot brown your onions and another three cloves of garlic.

Add the red wine and cook off all of the alcohol.

Add the carrot, celery, stock cubes, bay leaves, rosemary and black pepper.

Give this a good stir and add the liquidised tins of tomato.

Put the leg of lamb back into the pot and add some boiling water to ensure that the roast is
covered with liquid.

Place the lid on the pot and put into the oven at 220 degrees for 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes reduce the heat in the oven to 160 degrees for at least 3 hours.

Once the meat is pulling away from the bone and meltingly tender the roast is ready.

Remove the meat from the pot and wrap in a piece of tin foil to keep it warm and stop it from drying
out.

Remove the rosemary sticks and bay leaves from the sauce, check it for seasoning, add 4 cups of
water and bring the sauce to the boil.

Pour in the packet of pastina and stir constantly until it’s cooked.
This will take around 9 – 10 minutes.
Don’t leave the pot alone as the pastina wills stick to the bottom.

If you feel the sauce is too thick just loosen it up slightly with another cup of water.

When the pasta is cooked, pour it into a large bowl and lay chunks of the meat on top.

Cut wedges of lemon and place them around the roast and garnish with a little fresh basil or
rosemary.

Here is another delicious roast – De-boned shoulder of Pork with crispy crackling

This is well worth your time!

Have a wonderful weekend all!

As always

Buon Appetito

Xxx

jan