Chuletillas al Sarmiento

The Riojan grill: milk-fed lamb chops seared in minutes over the fierce, short-lived embers of dried vine prunings, salted, and eaten by hand

Origin: Haro, Logroño & La Rioja, Spain

From the journey of Grapes.

Chuletillas al sarmiento are tiny lamb chops grilled over sarmientos, the shoots cut from the vines in the winter pruning, and they are the dish by which the Rioja cooks its own landscape. Every year, once the harvest is in, the pruners leave the vineyards heaped with thin, woody canes. Dried, they make poor firewood: they catch at once, burn with a fierce heat, and fall to embers that last only a few minutes. Riojan country people noticed that a few minutes is exactly what a small chop needs, and that the burning vine leaves a faint, sweetish smoke on the meat that no other wood gives. The chops are cordero lechal, milk-fed lamb, so small that each is little more than a mouthful on a bone, and they are seasoned with salt and nothing else. Tradition places the dish's birth in the rural celebrations of the harvest, and whether or not that is exact, it is now the food of the Riojan outdoors: of village fiestas, of summer gatherings in the open air, and of the popular festivals and gastronomic days of Logroño and Haro, where the chops are eaten straight off the grill and by hand, with a glass of red Rioja. The fuel matters more than the method. The canes need to be thoroughly dry, ideally a year old, so that they burn evenly to a bed of embers without clouds of smoke, and the cook has to be ready when the flames die down, because the heat will not wait.

Ingredients

Lamb

  • 1.2 kg milk-fed lamb chops (chuletillas de cordero lechal), about 24 small chops
  • Coarse sea salt

Fire

  • 4 large bundles of thoroughly dried vine prunings (sarmientos)

To Serve

  • Crusty bread, to serve

Method

  1. Take the chops out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking.
  2. In a barbecue or brazier, make a loose, airy pile of vine prunings, broken into lengths, and light them. They will flare up at once.
  3. Let the flames die down to a bed of glowing embers, which takes only 10 to 15 minutes. Set the grill about 10 cm above them.
  4. Salt the chops generously on both sides just before they go on.
  5. Lay the chops on the grill and cook for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, until browned outside and still pink and juicy at the bone.
  6. Serve at once, straight from the grill, and eat by hand, holding the bone, with bread and a glass of red Rioja.

Notes

Vine prunings can be found from vineyards and from some specialist barbecue suppliers. Charcoal cooks the chops perfectly well but does not give the sarmiento smoke; it is then simply grilled lamb. Cook in batches rather than crowding the grill, and eat each batch as it comes off. Some Riojan cooks serve the chops with roasted red peppers or a simple salad, but at a festival they come with nothing but bread and wine.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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