Iberia · Volume 07, The Roast, the Pot and the Acorn Line
Ternasco Asado
Aragón
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour 45
Aragón, the IGP-protected milk-and-cereal-fed lamb, and the Casa de Ganaderos's own lineage.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 1 hour 45 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 ternasco, milk-fed from birth with straw and authorised concentrate, slaughtered at 70 to 90 days, carcass weight 8.0 to 13.0 kg, Rasa Aragonesa, Ojinegra de Teruel or Roya Bilbilitana breed
- To taste salt
- 100ml olive oil
- 2 tsp, or a few sprigs rosemary
- 1 tsp, or a few sprigs thyme
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1kg potatoes, cut into thick rounds
- as available laurel
- as available garlic oil
Method
- Season the ternasco simply with salt, olive oil, rosemary and thyme, pushing garlic into small cuts in the flesh: "only the spices that caress it, never the ones that cover it."
- Roast slowly at around 150°C, traditionally in a wood-fired oven.
- Roast the potatoes, cut into thick rounds, alongside in the same fat and juices, working laurel and garlic oil into the tray.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide leg and confit potatoes
Method
- Sous vide the leg at a controlled 58°C for several hours before finishing, guaranteeing the pale pink doneness the IGP specification describes edge to edge.
- Finish hard in a Big Green Egg for genuine roasted colour and aroma without gambling that colour against overcooking.
- Confit the potatoes in the rendered lamb fat at a controlled low temperature rather than roasting them raw alongside from the start, giving a creamier interior before their final high-heat crisping.
- Blitz the pan juices, garlic and herb oil together in a high-power blender into an emulsified sauce rather than serving the juices plain.