Foda à moda de Monção is a conventional dish from Portugal’s Vinho Verde area. This recipe, tailored from one shared with us by native winemaker Joana Santiago, was initially cooked in a wood-fired oven, then completed and served in a terra cotta “torto” roaster. The rectangular pot is conveniently formed in such a approach that the leg rests immediately over the rice, permitting warmth to flow into throughout it whereas nonetheless letting its flavorful juices drip into the saffron-scented rice beneath. (These cheap and enticing roasters can be found on-line from Portugalia Marketplace.)
For these of us restricted to fashionable stoves, our recipe testers additionally discovered that beginning the meat in a Dutch oven, then ending it on a wire rack positioned over a roasting pan received them fairly darned near the basic, wood-fired model. For wine, Santiago suggests forgoing the anticipated reds and as an alternative serving this aromatic and celebratory meat dish with a full-bodied and flippantly oaked white alvarinho, resembling her personal Quinta de Santiago “SOU.”
Featured in: “In Portugal’s Vinho Verde, Wine Is Green in More Ways Than One.”
Foda à Moda de Monção (Lamb Monção)
Typical moncao recipe known as Foda (the fuck). The dish is usually ready in a clay pot, however you should utilize a roasting pan fitted with a rack.
Yield: serves 12
Time:
24 hours, 55 minutes
Components
- ¼ cups plus 1 Tbsp. kosher salt, divided
- 1 medium lemon, halved
- 1 7–8 lb. leg of lamb
- 1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
- ¼ cups crimson wine vinegar
- 1 medium garlic cloves, peeled
- 3 tbsp. lard or canola oil
- ½ tsp. freshly floor black pepper
- 5 cups pork or hen broth
- ½ cups alvarinho or different dry white wine
- ¼ tsp. saffron
- 2½ cups carolino rice (or substitute bomba or arborio)
- 1 tbsp. kosher salt
- 6 strips (4 oz.) bacon
Directions
- 24 hours earlier than you intend to roast the lamb, make the brine: In a big bowl, plastic container, or nonreactive baking dish, whisk collectively ¼ cup salt, a squeezed half a lemon, and eight cups of heat water till the salt is dissolved. Set facet to chill to room temperature. When the brine is cool to the contact, add the lamb (the meat needs to be nearly utterly submerged within the liquid; if it isn’t, switch to a smaller container in order that it’s). Cowl and refrigerate for no less than 12 and as much as 24 hours, turning the leg over midway by means of to make sure that any components of the meat that aren’t lined by the brine are submerged.
- Make the marinade: To a blender, add the onion, vinegar, lard, garlic, black pepper, and the remaining salt and mix till easy.
- Take away the lamb from the brine and switch to a big rimmed baking sheet. Pat the meat dry with paper towels, then pour the onion combination all around the leg, turning a number of instances to coat the lamb within the marinade. Cowl loosely with plastic wrap and switch to the fridge to marinate for no less than 12 and as much as 24 hours.
- Preheat the oven (with one in every of its racks positioned within the middle) to 325ºF.
- Retrieve the lamb from the fridge, then switch it to a big Dutch oven and canopy with a lid. Switch to the oven and cook dinner till the lamb is tender and beginning to fall off the bone, 3–3½ hours. Take away and switch the oven as much as 350ºF.
- To a medium pot set over medium-high warmth, add the broth and wine and convey simply as much as simmer, then take away from the warmth, stir within the saffron, put aside to steep.
- In a big, terracotta torto or different massive roasting pan, stir collectively the rice, the saffron broth and ¼ cup of the cooking juices from the lamb. Place a wire roasting rack or a number of lengthy steel skewers excessive of the pan, then rigorously switch the lamb to relaxation atop the rack or skewers, positioned immediately over however not in direct contact with the liquid beneath. Lay the bacon strips excessive of the meat, then switch your entire dish to the oven. Roast till the rice is absolutely cooked and has absorbed all of its liquid and the lamb is golden and crispy throughout, 40–50 minutes.
- Switch the lamb to a big platter and carve into massive, shaggy chunks. Serve with the saffron rice on the facet.
