Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder

Photo by Ben Libby on Unsplash

Seven hours low and slow, a mountain of garlic, and a pan sauce that makes you want to eat bread for dinner. This is the one I cook when I want to impress without looking like I’m trying.

Prep: 30 min · Cook: 6h 30m · Rest: 30 min · Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 1 whole lamb shoulder, bone-in (2.5–3 kg)
• 1 whole head of garlic, cloves separated
• 6 anchovy fillets in oil
• 2 tbsp fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 250 ml dry white wine
• 250 ml chicken or lamb stock
• Flaky sea salt & black pepper

For the pan sauce

• All the roasting juices
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp cold butter

Method

1. Make the paste. Crush half the garlic cloves with a generous pinch of salt into a rough paste. Add the anchovies and crush again until you have something that looks almost uniform — don’t worry about it being perfect. Stir in the rosemary, thyme, lemon zest, and olive oil. Taste it. It should be intensely savoury and fragrant. Season with black pepper.
2. Score and stuff the lamb. Using a small sharp knife, make 20–25 deep incisions all over the shoulder, going about 3 cm deep. Push a halved garlic clove into each slit. Then rub the paste aggressively all over the lamb — into every crevice and under any flaps of fat you can find. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or at minimum 4 hours.
3. Set up for the long cook. Take the lamb out of the fridge 1 hour before cooking. Heat your oven to 160°C (140°C fan). Place the lamb in a deep roasting tin, pour the wine and stock around (not over) the meat, and cover tightly with two layers of foil. The steam is doing most of the work here.
4. Roast low and slow. Roast for 5.5–6 hours, until the meat is completely yielding and a skewer meets no resistance. Remove the foil, increase heat to 220°C, and roast for another 25–30 minutes until deeply caramelised and dark in patches. Watch it — you want colour, not char.
5. Rest, then make the sauce. Transfer the lamb to a board and rest uncovered for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pour the roasting juices into a small saucepan, skim any obvious fat, and reduce by a third over high heat. Add the vinegar, taste, then whisk in the cold butter off the heat. The sauce should be glossy and deeply savory — don’t over-reduce it.

A note on anchovies: Don’t skip them. You won’t taste fish. You’ll taste depth — that impossible richness that makes people ask what your secret is. Tell them it’s patience. It’s also anchovies.