Recipe for Cooking a Whole Lamb on a Spit

Simple Authentic Greek Spit Roast Lamb Recipe

In this blog, I am going to go through one of my favourite recipes for cooking a whole lamb on a charcoal spit that was used by my father when cooking for Easter, his name day or any other day of importance. Like every old-school Greek, nothing is measured properly and the ingredients are applied using judgement and experience. We did our best to provide you with ratios that we thought tasted the best but feel free to adjust quantities to suit your taste.

Cooking a whole lamb on a spit roaster is a tradition in many cultures that seems to be spreading throughout Australia. A whole lamb is a great way to cook for a medium-sized gathering, it tastes delicious and it provides a spectacle for everyone to drool over. 

Spit Roast Lamp Recipe Ingredients:

• 17kg (approximately) whole lamb

• Olive oil

• 200g salt

• 100g pepper

• 50g cumin

• 50g oregano

• 15 garlic cloves (crush 10 and slice 5 into quarters)

• 3 large crushed onions

• Rosemary sprigs for the cavity

Spit Roast lamp Basting Recipe

• 2 sprigs of rosemary for basting

• Basting mixture:150ml lemon juice, 250ml olive oil

Method:

• Lather the outside of the lamb with olive oil to assist with the spices sticking to the surface.

• Mix all the dry ingredients and evenly sprinkle them all over the lamb both inside and out. You can be heavy-handed when seasoning the cavity.

• Put the crushed onions, crushed garlic and rosemary into the stomach cavity.

• Make small cuts in the legs and all other thick parts of the meat and insert the sliced garlic cloves.

Have a look at our previous blog post on how to marinate a whole lamb.

Attaching it to the spit:

• You'll need a skewer at least 1300mm long, 2 large prongs, 1 back brace, 2 leg brackets, stainless steel wire and a basting brush
• Pass the skewer through the front and back cavities of the lamb
• Pierce the back brace around the spine of the lamb so that the U shape of the back brace straddles the skewer, spine and the flat plate is on the back of the animal
• Insert one large prong through each set of legs
• Bend the legs to fit inside the V shape of the leg brackets and use some wire to hold in place. 
• Stich up the stomach cavity either using wire or a needle and thread to seal in the juices from the onions
• If the neck on the lamb is long, I'd recommend tieing it down with some wire, otherwise, you'll find that it'll burn
• Once the lamb is correctly affixed to the skewer, you're ready to add the whole lamb to a spit.
• Make sure the animal is balanced to ensure even cooking. Take a look at our page to learn how to balance the lamb correctly

Basting:

• Using a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice and a bit of salt if you wish, baste the animal every 20-30 minutes to keep it moist from the outside. Be careful when applying the basting mixture as this will flare up when it drips into the hot coals.

Cooking time for a whole lamb on the spit:

Many things will affect your cooking time, however, allow around 5 hours to be on the safe side. If it's ready a little earlier, you can always push the BBQ charcoal to the side and raise the lamb to the top of the spit roaster so it stays warm but doesn't actually keep cooking. Use a cooking thermometer to test the internal temperature of the fleshiest part of the meat (the legs) and once it gets to 75 degrees, you know it's cooked. 

Trust me when I say, once you've cooked a whole lamb on a spit, you'll never be satisfied with a basic leg of lamb in the kitchen oven ever again!

When it comes to preparing the lamb and more importantly carving lamb, I highly recommend the use of a large carving tray to sit the animal in. This will catch all the juices while carving so you can pour them all over the meat once carved and it also makes the clean-up process so much easier. 

By: Rhiannon Peterson