Lamb Offals: coratella con la cipolla

Eating lamb offals is still quite common in the Center and South of Italy. In Rome there is a very traditional dish called "coratella con i carciofi", lamb offals with artichokes, which is always present at the table on Easter. Another variation of the dish, especially when it's not season for artichokes, is coratella with onions. It's indeed the one I made in this recipe.

You need very very fresh lamb plucks. I order them from my butcher with some notice. I got here the liver, that you can see on top, it's darker in color, the lungs and heart at the bottom. I cannot get for some reason the spleen and the sweetbreads.

 

Total weight was 1.5 kg, slightly more than 3 pounds, total cost 14 euros. 

Everything needs to be washed, dried with paper towels,  trimmed and cut in pea size pieces. It's bit of a tedious chore. Keep everything separated because lung, heart and liver have a different cooking time. 

 

I warm up a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat with some tallow (or lard, or lamb fat)  and add first the lungs (and some garlic and chili pepper), I stir them around,  they are going to get some color. After 5 minutes or so, you are going to hear a whistle, the lung it's very spongy so I just think at this point it has given out the retained water and hence the sound. You can add at intervals the other cuts in this order: sweetbreads, spleen, heart and hold the liver to the very end. After you added the heart but not yet the liver, deglaze with a cup of warm white wine, lower the heat and cover partially. Add some salt. It's going to take more or less 20-30 minutes to cook. It shouldn't be so dry that it sticks to the pan but you don't want soupy meat also.

In another pan add some sliced or chopped onions, like 2 onions,  and cooked them slowly with some olive oil untill they go to a beige to amber color, stir frequently, adding some salt and covering helps bringing out their own juices. It's going to take about the same time for the onion to cook than for the meat to be done. At this point, add the liver and the onion to the pan, with the rest of the offals to finish up cooking on high heat. No more than 5 minutes. Stir it around. You don't want your liver to cook much to keep it nice and tender. Adjust seasoning and if you like it you can add a squeeze of lemon, or little vinegar at the end. 

You can freeze left overs, defrost in the fridge and quickly steam to reheat. 

It's truly delicious!

Roasted lamb shoulder

Dinner was easy to put together. This is a staple of the house: roasted lamb shoulder. I do prefer shoulder over a leg of lamb it's fattier and tastier. I also made a side of roasted peppers with a balsamic vinagrette and some saute broccoli with garlic. It was very filling.

Ready for a recipe??? It's so simple that I would not even call it a recipe...

Roasted lamb shoulder

1 lamb shoulder
2 garlic cloves
1-2 rosemary sprigs
coarse sea salt (I use Guerande sea salt)
fat of your choice*
1 cup more or less of stock or water
1 teaspoon dijon mustard

Take your meat out of the fridge one hour before cooking and pat it dry.
 Preheat your oven at 220 C (430 F).
I ask my butcher to cut the tip of the foreshank for me, or you can cut yourself the tendons form the tip and expose the bone.
With a sharp boning knife I make some deep pockets in the meat and I insert slivers of garlic and little bit of rosemary. If I have some anchovies around I add also some small pieces here and there.

I massage the meat with fat, sprinkle with salt and bake at high temperature for 20-30 minutes. Then add some stock and lower the temperature to 170 C (350 F). I normally have some lamb stock available in the freezer, this time I used some beef stock. I cook for 1 and 20 minutes longer. I take out the meat and let it rest for 20 minutes before cutting.
Meanwhile, I deglaze the pan with some warm water and with a small whisk I incorporate a teaspoon or little more of mustard. Normally I would use some white wine in the recipe but I left it out here.

*Oil. I know Paleo police would not agree with me but here and in a lot of my cooking I use extravirgin olive oil. This is what a lot of Italians (the most) do and a lot of French from the Provence/Cote d'Azur area and I don't think we are doing too badly compared to the Americans. I use all kind of "healthy" fat: tallow, duck and goose fat, lard, foie gras fat and drippings. But in the summer I do use more extravirgin olive oil.