Being a pastry chef and having only eaten nutella crepes during my uni years, I’m a foreigner in meat-cooking land. I was also a vegetarian for 16 years, which doesn’t help. It’s only since the beginning of the quarantine that I’ve been walking to the butcher’s once a week: I go early so I can avoid the queue of 30 people standing two metres from one another that goes all around the block. Once I’m in, I’m terrified. I put on my best terrified face so the little man who serves me knows I’m well afraid and can therefore wear his accomodating face.
“What would you like, darling?”
“Lamb?”
“What lamb?”
I knew that was coming. “I don’t know!” All I can think about is the happy little lamb jumping on its 4 legs all at the same time in a green field, here I am asking for a part of the dead lamb. “God, I don’t know!”
“How many people are you feeding?”
“Five!”, that’s a lie, I’ve become a regular here and even my little man knows it’s not five of us quarantined in the flat. But he accomodates.
“And how are you cooking it?”
You know how this continues. In the end we decide to go for a lamb shoulder that I’m going to roast. I slow-roasted it for about 6 hours with plenty of spices, North-African style, and I served it with wealth of chopped fresh mint and pomegranate.
Ingredients (for 4-5, or to last one person a few meals):
1 lamb shoulder
1 onion, finely chopped
400 ml bone broth
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp sweet paprika
2 cinnamon sticks
1 lemon juice
1 tsp chopped parsley
olive oil, salt and black pepper as necessary
1 bunch fresh mint
1 pomegranate, just the seeds
Marinate the lamb with all the ingredients (except the broth, mint and pomegranate) oil one or two days prior to cooking, wrapped in clingfilm.
On the day of cooking, preheat the oven to 160’ (if static, 140’ if it has a fan). Unwrap the shoulder onto a baking tray, add more olive oil and sprinkle with a layer of salt. Pour about 200 ml of broth into the bottom of the tray and cook for 2-3 hours, turning the lamb and checking the broth hasn’t evaporated completely every now and then. Add the remaining broth and keep cooking for another 2-3 hours. You can pour boiling hot water into the tray if it ever dries out.
Once the lamb is ready, mix in a bowl the chopped mint and the pomehgranate seeds and use to serve on top of your portion.
Enjoy!