I’m holding off on writing anything about it until I get to actually do the whole thing from start to finish myself and take pics. Which was supposed to happen earlier this year but fell through. (need good location for doing it so I don’t set some wild fire)

There are a bunch of sites in spanish that cover the topic much better but I could just do the writing myself if I went so far as to translate them.

However, these guys have a pretty good writeup.

http://www.3men.com/asado_spit.htm

The only item they don’t cover is the fire set up. My connection has been screwy these past two days and I’m having trouble accessing half the sites out there. Flickr being one of them and I’ve seen some great pics that would give you a good idea about fire and coal placement. (Easier to do in pictures than words)

For what I’ve seen where one cordero was cooked, the fire pit was roughly about 1 to 1.5 meters in diameter depending on size.

Two common methods although there are many others:

The burning pile of wood(that you keep feeding) is in the center to provide primary heat with broken down embers spread all around.

The other way is where the main fire is off to one side-yet not too far-and lots of embers are pulled from that and placed near and somewhat around the cordero.

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&tab=wi&hl=en&q=cordero+al+palo

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=cordero+criollo

Lion isn’t very popular here so I’m not sure. Just kidding, couldn’t resist

That pretty much covers it, except it is more chopping instead of shredding–but go for it if you have that many guests. The main thing is for them to enjoy the meat.

Usually the asador has a large knife that is about the size of a broadsword from the middle ages that he/she uses to break bones or chop off chunks of meat. An easy way to cheat– and what many people do here outside of the fancy corderos al palo cooked in restaurants and in the campo– is to have the butcher use their band saw to make partial cuts along the bones so that it’s easier to chop after cooking.

I have a question about how to carve and serve an asado lamb that I really hope you can help me with.

I live in Denmark but have been to Argentina several times as my father is from La Plata. The both of us have always been fascinated with the Asado. After having experminted around, I have over the last years started doing real asados here in Denmark and am getting to the point where I cater with it during the summer.

I have finally invested in a mobile asado grill which lets me do asados most places in the middle of urban Copenhagen. I do the asado as part of an event for company parties, galleries or just anyone interested

When the lambs are done, there might be 100 anxiously waiting guests ready to eat. The lamb and side dishes are served “buffet” style where guests make there own plate.
So, the question is, how do you carve the lamb, when serving such a large number of guests? Do you cut each piece of meat “properly” so some get nice slices of roast, some shredded meat and others get pieces of the lion? Do you have any experience carving and serving asado as a buffet?

I really hope you can help as carving is really half the battle!

/Michael

Quite popular here too. Some prefer the texture from cooking in the oven as you say, for others it is simply because they don’t have a grill or, if they have one, don’t feel like using it all the time. Most of the people I’ve seen cooking lamb in the oven just toss it into a pan under the broiler in order to give it the same texture as with cooking on the grill. Not the same but is as close as you can get I suppose.

>clay dish

I’ll have to try that some time. If i can find a good clay dish. There are quite a few dishes that include meats such as lamb and are cooked either in covered pots or earthenware. Cordero a la criolla is one that comes to mind. One version, but with cut up pieces or chops, is cooked in covered earthenware with tomatoes, onions, tomatoes, parsley, etc. Another version is with the leg but cooked in an open roasting pan with the same ingredients. Is that similar to what you cook?

>white wine

I don’t see why not. Personally I haven’t tried it on lamb, have used red wine on occassion, but I have used white with pork and chicken. Always an excellent outcome. However, I always dilute it down with water to cut down the acidity a bit if just using as a brining marinade. Usually I like to use a plain salt water brine. Actually I want to write about that one day. You know, I never see anyone do salt water brining here before an asado. I’ve raised the topic a few times with friends but either they never did it or a few knew someone who did do it on occasion. For some meats it might mess with the goal of texture, but for chicken you just can’t compare the difference.

My fear with placing, say, a leg of lamb on the BBQ, is that over 3 hourse all the juices will go, leaving me with a rather dry piece of lamb. You see, I have to be sure that it will turn out better than in the oven, otherwise why bother?

Also, they tend to use a lot of olive oil here, which makes it too greasy for me. I am tempted to make a brine of sorts with white wine - would this work?