Brescian spiedo

How it is made

The steps are in the order you do them.

1. cut the meat, fresh and not frozen, into pieces of 70-80 grams, all the same weight
2. thread them onto the spits always in the same order, rib, chicken, loin and rabbit, with a sage leaf between one piece and the next, and a slice of potato one centimetre thick at the top and the bottom, so that the meat does not touch the metal
3. fit the spits onto the rotisserie and leave the meat to rest overnight
4. light the fire separately with ash, beech or hazel wood, never chestnut, and when it has turned to embers, after about half an hour, place them 15-20 centimetres from the meat, along the whole length of the spit
5. turn the meat dry for the first half hour, keeping the fire lively
6. from then on baste it from above with melted butter about every three quarters of an hour, collecting what drips off to use again
7. after one hour of cooking salt it once only, with plenty of fine salt
8. cook for five or six hours in all; in the last quarter of an hour stop basting and add fresh embers, for the crust
9. it is ready when the butter at the bottom foams and the meat is reddish brown and glossy: slide the pieces off into a hot dish and serve them with polenta and the cooking butter