Slow roast shoulder of lamb

I think ever since I was a child slow roast shoulder of lamb has been one of my favourites. I am not one for spring or new season lamb I find it tasteless, spring to me is when we first see the lambs bounding about in the fields enjoying the spring sunshine. If I have lamb it will generally be from September onward. What I have cooked here is hogget or lamb that is over a year old, when it gets to two years it is then mutton.

So for this, all you need is a whole shoulder of lamb, hogget or mutton. A few sprigs of rosemary, 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, zest of a lemon, a few anchovy fillets, salt, pepper and a good glug of olive oil. Add all the ingredients to a pestle and mortar and give a good bash. Score the flesh of the meat and massage the marinade all over. You can place into a dish and cover or as I do wrap well in clingfilm and place in the fridge overnight.

Preheat your oven to 150c, gas mark two or 300f. In your roasting tray or like I did in a large casserole pot place onions, carrots, celery all roughly chopped, this is your trivet that the meat will sit on during cooking, to the tray or pot add a glass of white wine, a stockpot, cube or fresh stock about two cups. Place the meat and all the marinating bits and pieces onto the trivet of veg, cover with foil or place the lid on and put into your preheated oven.

Sunday Roast

This really is a joint you can just pop in the oven and get on with whatever else you want or need to.

The picture above is the end result after 6 hours of slow cooking, the bones just pulled out and the meat was tender and juicy. The veg that was the trivet are now basically confit and taste amazing, of course the meat juices make the most amazing gravy,

I served it with minted new potatoes, boulanger potatoes, honey roast parsnips. buttered savoy cabbage, cauliflower and carrots with a rich mint gravy and mint sauce. You can’t have lamb without mint sauce.