Roasted shoulder of lamb for Easter

I hosted my parents for Easter this year, and in between doing several chores around the house (thanks, Dad!) and avoiding some nasty winter-ish weather, we ate pretty well.

I had in my mind that I wanted to serve up lamb for Sunday dinner, and naturally went first to Jamie Oliver to see what he suggested. I landed on his recipe for roasted shoulder of lamb, and immediately started to drool over his descriptions of flavourful meat that fell off the bone after four hours in a low oven. I happened to catch an episode of Jamie at Home earlier in the week, and we watched it on Friday evening, our mouths watering as Jamie demonstrated how an economical cut of meat (his term) could be transformed with slow, even cooking. We were sold and a menu of lamb was set.

Then came the difficult task of actually finding a lamb shoulder to cook. No luck at Farm Boy, or a butcher shop in the market. I asked my mum to try the butcher's in Lakefield (who were open on Good Friday -- heathens!), and nothing there either. Same result at Ralph's butcher shop in Norwood too.

I was worried we might have to resort to a lamb leg and admit defeat.

But I decided to give one last try on Saturday morning and we hit the jackpot at a very busy Glebe Meat Market. There were several shoulders to choose from, and the butcher offered to slice and dice it any way we wanted. We ended up with about a five pound roast, mostly shoulder with a few ribs attached. Off to the cash register where I forked over $36 for our little beauty. What was that you said about an economical cut, Jamie?? I supposed if you're a gazillionaire like our friend the Naked Chef, this isn't much money to spend on dinner. And it was a treat, I told myself, while silently cursing the lamb and muttering he'd better be worth it.

And worth it he (she?) was! This lamb was probably the most delicious I've ever had, if I do say so modestly and unashamedly. The best part is that's it was super simple to prepare with incredibly outstanding results.

Here's the roast before it went in the oven, covered in rosemary and garlic and lying in my new roasting pan, that I christened for the event. The pan was so massive that it didn't quite fit in my teeny tiny oven, and had to go in on an angle in order for the door to close.

And about four hours later, it came out looking like this. The bones fell right out and we could pull apart the meat with forks. So, so good.

Here's what the table looked like with good china and cutlery. Not baa-ad for a holiday meal, huh?

Increcible roasted shoulder of lamb
From Jamie at Home

• a large bunch of fresh rosemary
• 1 x 2kg shoulder of lamb
• olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled, broken into cloves

Preheat your oven to full whack. Slash the fat side of the lamb all over with a sharp knife. Lay half the sprigs of rosemary and half the garlic cloves on the bottom of a high-sided roasting tray, rub the lamb all over with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place it in the tray on top of the rosemary and garlic, and put the rest of the rosemary and garlic on top of the lamb. Tightly cover the tray with tinfoil and place in the oven. Turn the oven down immediately to 170°C/325°F/gas 3 and cook for 4 hours – it’s done if you can pull the meat apart easily with two forks.