Name: Rotisserie Bone In Leg of Lamb (Moroccan style)
Prep time: 4 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 5 h
Cuisine: Moroccan
Ingredients: 3 to 4 pound Butt end leg of lamb, trimmed of excess fat; 1 teaspoon cumin seeds; 1 teaspoon coriander seeds; 1 teaspoon fennel seeds; 1 tablespoon kosher salt; Juice of 1 lemon; 2 tablespoons olive oil

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Ever since I saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I've wanted to cook a bone in leg of lamb on my rotisserie.*

*The scene where Toula's in-laws are visiting for the first time, pull up, and see the whole lamb on the rotisserie in the front yard.

**Yes, it's true. When I'm watching a movie, what I'm thinking is "Hmm. When can I cook that?"

Unfortunately, I don't have a big enough grill for an entire lamb, so I had to make do with just a bone-in lamb leg.

Recipe: Rotisserie bone in leg of lamb, Moroccan style

Grill with Rotisserie attachment (I used a Weber Summit 650 with an infrared rotisserie burner. Here it is.)
Aluminum foil drip pan (9"x11", or whatever fits your grill)

Rotisserie Bone In Leg of Lamb (Moroccan style)

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Author: Mike Vrobel
Total Time: 5 hours
Yield: 8-12 1x

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Description

Rotisserie Leg of Lamb with flavors from Northern Africa.

Ingredients

Scale

3 to 4 pound Butt end leg of lamb, trimmed of excess fat

Rub

1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon kosher salt

Lemon and olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Salt and Rub: Coarsely grind the spices in the rub, mix in the salt, then rub all over the roast, working the rub into any seams in the meat. Let the roast rest in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.
Tie and rest at room temperature: 1 hour before cooking, remove the roast from the refrigerator. Truss the roast, tying it every 1.5 inches along the length of the roast Mix the lemon juice and olive oil, then rub all over the lamb. Run the rotisserie spit through the center of the lamb, aiming as close to the bone as you can.
Prepare the grill: Set your grill up for rotisserie cooking at high heat. For my Weber Summit, this means turning the two outer burners (burners 1 and 6) to high, and turning the infrared burner to high. Then I put my drip pan in the middle, over the unlit burners.
Cook the lamb: Put the spit on the grill and start the rotisserie. Cook with the lid closed, until the lamb reaches 135°F in its thickest part for medium, about 1 hour. (Cook to 120°F for medium-rare, and 110°F for rare.) Start checking the lamb's temperature at 30 minutes, and watch out for the bone and the spit - they can throw the reading off.
Rest and carve: Remove lamb leg from the grill, and let rest at least 15 minutes before carving. Remove trussing string, carve into ¼" to ½" thick slices, and serve.

Prep Time: 4 hours
Cook Time: 1 hour
Category: Rotisserie
Cuisine: Moroccan

Notes:

Serve with couscous and a tomato and onion salad with a lemony vinaigrette.
Leftovers make great Gyros. Cut the lamb into thin slices, slice some red onion, make some tzatziki sauce, and buy a pack of pita bread. I've already got this on our meal plan for later in the week.
My butcher removed the shank bone from the leg of lamb for me. This made it easer to skewer, because there was just the leg bone running in one direction. This did leave me with a floppy piece of meat at the end of the roast that I had to carefully tie when I was trussing, to make sure it didn't flop around while the rotisserie was running.
If you don't remove the shank bone, it results in a "dog-leg" turn in the bone. Here's a link to carving a lamb leg if the shank is not removed.
How to skewer a bone in leg of lamb, in pictures:

The bone runs where the skewer is in this picture

Run the skewer through just next to the bone, on the thicker side of the meat, trying to hit center mass

Voila! Skewered right through the middle.

Pull it off sooner than you usually would, because the carry-over heat from the skewer will help finish it. Here's the Time and Temp chart for my 4 pound roast -
20 min - 61F
30 min - 75F
40 min - 95F
50 min - 115F (Pulled it at 55 min, assuming I'd be about 120F. The thin end was well done; thick end was medium; see picture at top.)

*If at all possible, do the early salting! This was the most flavorful leg of lamb I've ever cooked, and I think the early salting had a lot to do with it.

What do you think? Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

Inspired by:
My Big Fat Greek Wedding

How to Grill by Steven Raichlen

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers (pre-salting works wonders!)

Weber Summit w/ Infrared Rotisserie Burner

Check out my cookbook, Rotisserie Grilling.

Everything you could ask about the rotisserie,
plus 50 (mostly) new recipes to get you cooking.

It's a Kindle e-book, so you can download it and start reading immediately!

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Comments

Sam.

May 06, 2015 at 8:12 am

Just got a portable rotisserie with no lid, would it be possible to still try out your fab recipes.

- Mike V
  
  May 06, 2015 at 8:18 am
  
  Yes, but it's going to take longer - no lid means no trapped heat. I think they're going to take 20% to 50% longer - go by internal temperature, not by time - and if you try them let me know how it goes!