Spiced lamb shoulder

This recipe is from Tom Kerridge’s Dopamine Diet. One of his most impressive feats is his weight loss and maintenance, enough to inspire a range of cookbooks and many people. His recipes are pure FatSteak Club, rich, meaty, fried foods, pickles, burgers, slow roasts and heavy on flavours and spices.

Lamb is definitely one of my favourite meats. When you add spice and slow cook there is little that can go wrong. This dish is as comfortable as we head into Autumn, or cooked on an indirect heat on a BBQ in summer. Using shoulder of lamb is cost effective, and cooking on the bone adds a real depth of flavour.

Play with the spice paste ingredients according to your own tastes. Keep the heat if you can, it cuts through the fat of the lamb perfectly.

A perfect side is Tom’s curried cauliflower. You can find that recipe here.

Step 1 - The spice paste

• If you are using dried chillies rehydrate them by pouring over boiling water and leaving to cool

• Here I used a jar of ancho chillies for a rich smokey fiery hit

• In a processor (or pestle and mortar if you want a work out) add all of the ingredients apart from the lamb

• Blend to a paste, adding a drop of water if it is too thick
  Top tip: I left some of the garlic chunky so it could caramelise on the lamb

 

Step 2 - Coat your meat

• Poke 1cm deep cuts all over the lamb with a sharp knife

• Smear on the paste and coat well

• Wrap tightly in clingfilm and place on a tray

• Leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 8 hours, overnight is perfect

Step 3 - Take it slow

• Take the lamb out of the fridge

• Preheat your oven to 140C / Gas 1

• Unwrap the meat and place in a roasting dish

• Cook for at least 4 hours

• You want the meat to so tender you can ‘carve’ it with a fork, if not, pop back in for 30 mins

• Take it out and rest under foil for at least 30 minutes

 

 Ingredients - Spiced lamb shoulder

• 10 dried chillies

• 6 cloves garlic

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 2 tsp ground coriander

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• 2 tsp smoked paprika

• 2 tsp curry powder

• 2 tsp sea salt

• 70ml Olive oil

• 1 shoulder lamb, bone in (around 2kg)