Baked lamb, Basilicata-style

Recipe for baked lamb with tomatoes and potatoes

Preparation

• - Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
• - Crumble stale bread, slice the garlic and onion.
• - Peel potatoes and cut crossways.
• - Spoon 1 Tbsp olive oil on the bottom of a baking pan.
• - Remove visible fat from lamb pieces.
• - Wash lamb pieces and pat dry with absorbent kitchen paper.
• - Season lamb pieces with salt and pepper (if liked) according to your own taste.
• - Place lamb pieces in the pan and cover them with a layer of potatoes. Salt lightly the potatoes.
• - Sprinkle bread, onion, parsley and garlic on the top.
• - Cover with tomato pulp. Salt lightly. Look at the photo for more details.
• - Sprinkle remaining olive oil on the top.

Cooking

• - Bake your lamb for almost 2 hours.

Just before serving

• Serve this lamb dish hot.

Note

Tips

• - If you have some pieces left of baked lamb don't worry. It's tasty even the day after. Warm it up.
• - For people that don't like garlic. I prepared this recipe with no garlic: our guests appreciated it a lot. Substitute it with fresh chives.
• - The photo shows lamb before baking.
• - The authentic recipe calls for much more fat. In fact women sprinkled a lot of lard flakes on the surface before baking in the past. But nowadays most nutritionists recommend we eat less fat. I generally solve the problem using an oil sprinkler. Only in this way I can use less than two tablespoons olive oil for the top.

Menu planning

• - Serve this lamb dish as one-plate meal accompanied by seasonal fruit.
  If you choose it in a full menu for a get-together with your friends these doses are enough for more people. In this case it is better to choose a different cut of lamb, for example the leg of lamb to avoid too many bones.
  Besides be careful to choose the other dishes. They must be light and not rich in ingredients. What about pinzimonio? that is raw fresh vegetables to be served with a little bowl full of good-quality olive oil. Fantastic! and then ... a tasty dish of rice or pasta dressed with vegetarian sauce. It's now time of serving your lamb dish according to an authentic Italian menu. And finally the classic Italian cake that is crostata (a tart filled with jam or fruit) or another cake with no custard and whipped cream. To browser our directory "Italian cooking" click on the green button on the navigation bar. It's our home page and it's easy to find all the recipe you are looking for.

Healthy eating

• - This baked lamb with potatoes, onions and tomatoes is a dish rich in protein, very close to the maximum recommended daily intake according to the European guideline daily amounts.
  Total fat doesn't seem very excessive at first sight but you have to know I calculated it considering lamb muscle tissue deprived of visible fat.
  If I consider semi-fat meat calories rise to 647 and fat to 35.8g
  But if you can not give up lamb fat you have to know calories will be about 766 calories and total fat 50.0g!
  The choice is all yours at this point!
  My tip is to choose it for a special occasion.
  Anyway if you want to prepare it for your family you have:
  - to follow strictly my recipe directions and doses
  - to plan very well the other meals of the day. Prefer vegetables, fruit and food source of carbohydrates (total carbohydrates are low in this dish) but in the right quantity. What about a tasty minestrone served on toasted bread for lunch? Remember: the bread portion is 50g (1 3/4 ounces).
  If you make a lot of minestrone for lunch you'll be able to heat it up and serve before your lamb. Its a good idea if you have hungry people at table.
  - not to serve any bread with potatoes!
  Why lamb for dinner? Most of the foods, main source of protein, should be eaten at dinner
• - This lamb dish has 4.3g of fiber (daily recommended value is 30g)

Loretta

What's the right wine ?

For this typical recipe of Basilicata (in Italy also called Lucania) our tip is a local red wine: Aglianico del Vulture