This recipe keeps the three rules: sheep meat with its own fat, no marinade, and salt only after the grill. The choice that matters is threading the fat through the skewer at about one part in four, because it melts over the coals and bastes every cube. Keep the pieces small and packed tight so they cook through in the two or three minutes it takes the edges to char.
Make ahead You can thread the skewers up to a day ahead and keep them covered in the fridge; salt them only once they come off the fire.
Arrosticini
Prep 40 min · Cook 15 min · Serves 4 · Difficulty Easy
Method
Cut the meat and its fat into even 1.5 to 2 cm cubes, keeping roughly one part fat to four parts lean.
20 min
Thread the cubes tightly onto thin skewers, alternating in fat every few pieces, with no air between cubes; each stick takes about 8 cubes.
20 min
Light charcoal and wait for calm white embers with no flame; the ideal is a narrow bed so the stick handles ride outside the heat.
25 min
Grill the arrosticini in a packed row, turning every 30 to 40 seconds, until the fat glistens and the edges char lightly, 2 to 3 minutes total.
10 min
Salt them as they come off and stack under foil so they steam tender while the next round cooks.
2 min
Grill-toast the oiled bread at the fire’s edge and serve everything hot, by the dozen, with red wine in tumblers.
Kitchen notes
Fat between the lean. The interleaved fat is the basting system. Trim it out and you grill dry little cubes; keep it and every bite arrives glossed.
No marinade, ever. Arrosticini taste of sheep, smoke, and salt, full stop. Rosemary oil on the bread is welcome; on the meat it is treason.
Without a furnacella, set two bricks on a grate to make a narrow ember channel; the skewer tips must hang past the coals or they burn before the meat does.
