This was dinner tonight. The recipe is from the book Nigella Bites, in the Slow-cook Weekend chapter. I’ve read this recipe loads of times, but have never been really tempted to cook this, until I saw her cook this on TV last week, and realised how tasty it looked.

I got lamb shoulder from our fantastic local butcher, who is really friendly and specialises in organic, free-range and biodynamic meats. Fantastic. You brown the lamb in a pot and then cook it in the oven with some root vegetables (for flavour) at a really low temperature for hours until it is cooked and tender. As I bought the lamb late in the afternoon, I only cooked it for three hours.

Once it comes out of the oven, you hack at the meat with various implements to shred it into bite-size pieces. I started with a kitchen knife, a fork and a barbecue fork, but finally resorted to my bare hands, which are now slightly burnt and cut up from the hot meat and sharp bones. Painful, but worth it, because we were starving and the meal was delicious.

The recipe calls for just eating the lamb as it is, sprinkled with pomegranate and mint, but I put the lamb shreds on top of rocket and baby spinach, tagliata style. Besides, I can’t handle a meal without a salad!


Lamb Shoulder in (brand new Le Creuset) Pot after cooking

I served the lamb (as per Nigella’s suggestion) with char-grilled red peppers topped with feta cheese and almonds.


Warm Shredded Lamb Salad with Mint and Pomegranate, Roast Peppers on the left hand side

Absolutely fantastic. I can’t recommend this enough. We polished it off quickly, even though my brother only had a tiny bit because he was about to go out.