Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Leg of Lamb (Gigot) on the Fire

For the Swiss National Holiday, we went up into the mountains to our good friend, Graziano's cottage at about 1800 m height. Electricity not being available up there, living and cooking work a bit differently. A lot of herbs, like the thyme we've used to fill the lamb with, grows just around the corner at the edge of the forest.

Graziano has been our family's friend for years and he's always been famous for preparing a wonderful leg of lamb roast on the fire. This time was no exception and the fresh air in the alps and the fantastic view over the mountains made this dinner an unforgettable one!

The fridge in the alps! The water, directly from a mountain water stream has about the same temperature (6 C. / 43 F.) as the inside of a state-of-the-art fridge and works great for storing food.








Graziano opening the lid of the 'fridge' and removing a water melon.











Since our leg of lamb was a bit uneven in thickness, Graziano chopped a few sticks to tie together the lamb roast.









Sharpening the sticks.












Pushing the sticks through the marinated leg of lamb was holding it together nicely.











The chef holding his marinated, tied together leg of lamb, ready to put it on the fire.










A wide grilling place works great to have a fire burning on one side while being able to move the hot embers to the other side underneath a grill.








Graziano's fantastic leg of lamb roast, filled with a garlicy thyme marinade!










The kitchen inside the cottage works without elecricity as well! At night, candles are used to light the place and a fire is burning underneath the stove top. The stove is a swiss made Tiba.







Opening the door to the stove reveals a beautiful fire burning and heating up the stove top for cooking. We've prepared a few potatoes, diced and seasoned with fresh rosemary, salt and pepper as a side dish for the lamb. For dessert the stove came in action again for a calory bomb dessert, a chocolate cream made out of dark swiss chocolate, melted with some heavy whipping cream and then served with some more whipped cream! Very heavy but great!

1 Comments:

At 8:52 AM, Blogger *Vera* said...

:) good!!!

 

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