Cordero lechal · Spain · Abbacchio
Both are milk-fed lamb slaughtered before weaning — Castile roasts it whole in a wood oven, Lazio does it with rosemary and anchovy.
Five questions on lamb — the smallest section of the catalog and the one where age matters more than anatomy. Spain's cordero lechal and Italy's abbacchio are both milk-fed lamb, and neither is really a cut at all: they are the whole young animal, sold before it has eaten grass.
Where are you?
Lamb has fewer cross-tradition pairs than beef or pork, because most traditions break a lamb the same way. What differs is when they kill it and how they name the chop.
Both are milk-fed lamb slaughtered before weaning — Castile roasts it whole in a wood oven, Lazio does it with rosemary and anchovy.
A Barnsley is the loin cut across the whole saddle, so it is a double chop with a kidney; a loin chop is one side of it.
The saddle is the whole unsplit loin, roasted on the bone. Chops are what you get when it is cut down.
One of the five questions asks you to point at the animal. Lamb is divided into seven primals on the diagram.
Slow-cooked — the cheapest and most forgiving lamb there is.
Roast or braise; the cut most lamb stews start from.
The rib section — carré, rack of lamb, abbacchio a scottadito.
Loin chops, the saddle, and the Barnsley cut across both sides.
Between loin and leg. Chump chops, and the rump if it is left whole.
Gigot, pierna, the Sunday roast.
Fatty and cheap; rolled and slow-roasted, or cut into riblets.
A double loin chop cut straight across the unsplit saddle, so it has loin on both sides of the backbone and often a kidney. It is a Yorkshire cut and most butcheries outside Britain will not know the name.
Effectively yes. Both name milk-fed lamb slaughtered before it starts grazing — abbacchio in Lazio, cordero lechal in Spain. The catalog links them as close equivalents.
Because a lamb is small enough that most traditions break it the same way. Beef is large enough that where you draw the lines becomes a matter of national style, which is what the rest of this site is about.
The board on this page changes through the day. The daily board at /guess is one shared set of five for everybody, mixing beef, pork and lamb, and /guess/practice reshuffles on every load.