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Lamb Shoulder Recipe

Servings: 4 people

Ingredients

  • 1 large lamb shoulder or 2 small ones
  • 20 g butter, ghee or coconut oil
  • 2 sticks celery (broken in half)
  • 2 carrots (organic, skin on, chopped into a couple of big chunks each)
  • 1 purple onion (i dig the sweetness in a slow roast situation. Use brown if it’s what you have, still gorgeous.)
  • 4-6 cloves garlic
  • 2 bay leaves*
  • 2 stems rosemary leaves*
  • 1/4 bunch parsley
  • 4 sprigs thyme * tied roughly together with the thyme sprigs into an easy-to-remove-later bundle
  • 1 tbsp good quality salt (Celtic sea salt or pink Himalayan are fab)

Instructions

  • At lunch time around midday, or early morning is fine too if you want to do it before work.
  • Preheat oven to 140C for midday cooking, or 120C for early morning all-day.
  • Get a cast iron pot big enough to house your lamb shoulder, or a large, deep frying pan. Do not use a non stick pan – besides teflon being a very dubious, toxic surface to cook with, you actually want the meat to stick + get a bit of caramelization to deglaze with for flavour factor!
  • Rub the salt into your lamb shoulder, on both sides.
  • Place pan on medium-high heat and melt butter
  • Just as butter sizzles, place lamb shoulder into pan and brown just a couple of minutes both sides.
  • Just as butter sizzles, place lamb shoulder into pan and brown just a couple of minutes both sides.
  • Once 2nd side of lamb has browned, leaving the lamb in there, pop the water in to deglaze.
  • Add carrots, celery, onion, garlic and herbs to the water around the shoulder.
  • Cover with lid or foil and pop into your low heat oven for 7-12 hours.
  • Fork the lamb onto plates (trust me, it’s that tender!) and top with a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking juices.
  • This is the before and after of your tiny 10 minutes work!

Notes

Serving TIP: You can pour off the liquid and use to 'dress' servings when plating up. I LOVE dousing the platter in pomegranate seeds, lemon juice, goat's feta and fresh mint. So, so tasty!
Leftovers TIP: With your left over meat, you can use to put into sandwiches, toasties, wraps, this salad recipe, or to make a fabulous soup with all the leftover juices as your stock base. yum!
No waste TIP: Make a stock with the shoulder bone to then use for a veggie soup. Read my stock post here.