Succulent Grilled Lamb Skewers

This recipe is from The Greek Cookbook by Tess Mallos, a cookbook from a neighbor of ours who is known to serve excellent lamb dishes.

I asked for the cookbook last summer when we were preparing for a dinner party grill-out in hopes of finding an excellent lamb kabobs recipe, and I certainly did.

The absolute key to this recipe, and I've decided to making lamb in general, is the marination time. This summer, I marinated the lamb over night and when we made this recipe about a week ago, we let it marinate all day. Moral of the story, the longer the better.

Marinade proportions for one leg of lamb, which should be cubed before marinating:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3-4 bay leaves
• salt and pepper
• any other herbs you enjoy: basil, parsley, mint, etc.

I think I probably ended up doubling or tripling this marinade for making a few lamb skewers to allow the meat to be submerged in marinade. To this end, don't be timid with any of the amounts above and feel free to improvise to really get the most out of the flavor and marinating time.

After marinating for several hours or overnight, thread the lamb onto skewers (metal is best for the grill, wood will also work).

Here is where the option of indoor or outdoor grilling presents itself. Last summer we seared the lamb on the grill, leaving it partially rare and it was absolutely mouth-watering. This time of year, no one wanted to be the one stuck grilling in gloves, so we used the griddle and broiled it in the oven. I would say the grill was ideal but both are wonderful.

I won't make any assumptions about how people like their meat cooked, so I'll leave it at cook it to your desired temperature. 

That being said, I would highly recommend the seared lamb (if the meat is fresh and of high quality) that leaves it somewhat rare inside, because the meat is so wonderfully flavored from swimming in the marinade for several hours.