How to Marinate a Whole Lamb For Spit Roasting

Cooking a whole lamb on a spit is a traditional way to celebrate special events in some cultures. While it's not something that I was personally brought up with, experiencing it just a couple of times at the in-laws soon made me realise what I'd been missing out on all my life and cooking a whole lamb on the spit soon became my favourite way to indulge. 

Now if you can imagine at the time you're eating the lamb on the spit how delicious it tastes and you're adament that you'll remember each and every herb and spiece you used, but trust me you'll forget by the time you're ready to do it again. Because it's something that even the most enthusiastic spit roast connoisseurs don't do every week, it's easy to forget how you marinated it 6 months ago!  

To make sure I never forget again, I filmed the process...I thought it would be handy to be able to share it with other spit roast enthusiasts. 

In my opinion, a 17kg lamb is the best weight for the best tasting lamb on the spit. It still has heaps of meat on it, but any heavier and the meat is too tough and fatty. I paid $7.99 per kg which works out to be $135 or around $5 per head.
  

To give the lamb its delicious taste, I put a basic rub  all over (both inside and out) including of a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin onion powder and smoky paprika. Because the ingredients weren't sticking to the lamb after a while, I rubbed some olive oil over the surface to add more moisture.

While you're sprinkling all the ingredients on, you'll probably think you're putting too much, but really it's not much at all. Personally I don't measure by weight, I just make sure I put enough to cover the whole lamb. Rub it all over the inside and outside including the stomach cavity. You're only limited by your own imagination. You can add whatever you like. You really can't go wrong when cooking a whole lamb on a spit.   

I also like to use crush onion and garlic and throw it in the stomach cavity. I also use fresh rosemary sprigs. All of that will infuse into the lamb and create a mouthwatering flavour.   

Stuff the lamb for a spit

After you have the lamb all marinated, you'll need to sew up the stuffing inside. Otherwise as the lamb rotates on a spit, everything will fall out . You can use a needle and thread, however I prefer to use stainless steel wire.

Ideally you'd want to marinade your full lamb the night before or at least a few hours so that the flavours have time to infuse the meat.

Coming up soon, we'll be showing you how to put a lamb on a spit.

You'll find all kinds of other marinading ideas online