Cooking lamb a la ficelle with coal power
An open flame handled well cooks beaufiully and adds a delicious smokiness.
Lamb a la ficelle by chef Danielle Alvarez, Freds, Sydney
A few years back we called it a trend. In hindsight, for grill-mad Australians who connect fire and coals with a somewhat mythical relationship to the great outdoors, restaurant cooking with wood, coals and embers was always going to be something that transcended mere fad.
So it’s no surprise some of the most exciting places to eat out in Australia right now are those that make the effort — and it is a serious one — to install the right equipment and get in the required raw materials to give diners the haute barbecue experience of food nuanced with wood smoke and the extreme radiant heat of glowing coals.
Three easy examples come to mind: the no-electricity cooking of Firedoor in Sydney, where chef Lennox Hastie generates all the embers in a massive furnace before transferring to a variable-height grill to cook everything from cos lettuce to flathead.
Then there is the modernist kitchen of Geelong’s Igni — the name is a clue — where chef Aaron Turner uses a Japanese charcoal box in much the same way, for everything from hard grilling to gentle, smoke-infused warming.
And there is the rollicking good time of Adelaide’s Africola, where nearly everything that needs heat gets it from a wood-burning grill or a wood oven. Chef Duncan Welgemoed has made a name for himself with his charcoal vegetables.
Danielle Alvarez is another, a young American making an impact in Australia, and using wood and fire in new/old ways. The restaurant she fronts, Freds, in Sydney’s Paddington, has been showered with critical acclaim since opening last year, and much of it centres on the chef’s light, simple French-inspired farmhouse food, influenced heavily by her years cooking at Alice Waters’s famed institution Chez Panisse.
Alvarez grew up in Miami in a large Cuban family to which she attributes her love of food, cooking and hospitality.
After a short stint in the art world, she decided to pursue cooking in her early 20s and moved to northern California to get a start.
“I spent eight years cooking in and around the Bay Area, the last four years of that at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.
“I would say that restaurant and that food had the greatest influence on my cooking philosophy: it’s where all those ideas about simplicity and using the best ingredients possible from small local farms really came to life for me.
“There is where I could see and taste the value in it and the positive affect that can have on people and the community.
“I serendipitously came to Sydney for a holiday and fell in love with the town at the very moment Merivale was looking to do a Chez Panisse-esque restaurant in Sydney. In a roundabout way, I found myself interviewing for the head chef role of a then unnamed restaurant in Paddington. Luckily, he enjoyed my cooking and the ideas behind it, and we decided to move forward. I moved to Sydney in 2014 and we opened Freds in October 2016 — a long wait but totally worth it.”
THE BACKSTORY
Lamb leg a la ficelle evokes in Alvarez memories of cooking hundreds of lamb legs in a fireplace during her time at Chez Panisse.
“I remember thinking when we were designing the kitchen at Freds that I can just imagine lamb legs hanging in this fireplace and how much I hoped it would delight our guests. It’s such a gorgeous way to cook because the fat really renders and yet cooks evenly and gently to give you a perfect roast. All you need is a fireplace.
“I’ve cooked lamb like this in plenty of domestic fireplaces as well, so it is doable; you just need a hook or a nail to hang it from.”
THE PRODUCE
Alvarez has several suppliers, all small farms near Sydney, including Moorlands Biodynamic, the Texel lamb producer in the upper Lachlan Valley. You’d find its lamb in Sydney at Feather & Bone. “I’ve always believed in sourcing from small local farms because the people that want to farm that way tend to care so much more about the soil, their product, their systems, ethical treatment of animals and sustainability, and that almost always translates to better flavour — aside from all the other positive reasons behind that thinking,” Alvarez says.
“Meat and especially lamb, in my opinion, is far better from small local farms and I can’t think of anything better to share with friends than a beautiful roasted leg of lamb that you have sourced, seasoned and cooked with care.”
THE METHOD
Ask your butcher for a whole leg of lamb, Alvarez says, “and I mean entirely whole, with ankle tendon still attached, because that’s where you will hang it from”. Ask your butcher to help by removing the aitch bone.
“We also tunnel bone out the femur, which you can ask your butcher to do, but if they won’t it is not essential, it just makes it easier to carve once cooked.”
She blends chopped thyme, rosemary and the herb savoury with pounded garlic and rubs the entire leg, inside and out, with this marinade.
The leg is also seasoned liberally with salt and pepper and tied up to make it as even as possible, before refrigerating overnight.
“About one hour before you want to cook the lamb, start a fire in the fireplace. Figure out where you can hang the leg from where it will be spinning approximately 20cm from the flames and 5cm to 10cm off the ground with a dish underneath to catch the drippings; some parboiled potatoes in here would be delicious. Then hang it so that it is dangling by the looped string and give a spin.”
Gravity and the heat should keep it spinning gently, she says, but it may need a nudge every now and then.
“Once it is browned, start taking the internal temperature. For medium you want your thermometer to read approximately 65C.”
When it gets there, cut the leg down and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. Carve and serve with roasted potatoes, salad and a few wedges of lemon with fresh green olive oil.
THE TWIST
OK, this dish can’t be done without an open fireplace. But, as Alvarez says, “It would surely impress anyone you were having over for dinner, and in winter I can’t think of anything more cosy than cooking this way.
“If you don’t have a fireplace but still want to cook lamb this way, an outdoor fire pit and metal tripod (fireproof) stand would also work. The result is also delicious.”
THE PRICE
At Freds, when it’s on, this main course is $44.
“A leg of lamb from a good source will probably set you back around $40 to $50,” Alvarez says, “but it should feed at least eight.”
Throw in some side dishes, and the herbs, and you’re probably looking at about $80 to $90 total. “But at $10 a head,” says Alvarez, “I think this is great value for a complete meal for friends and family.” Hard to disagree.