Warm Shredded Lamb Salad with Mint and Pomegranate
- 1 lamb shoulder (approximately 5 1/2 pounds)
- 4 shallots, halved but not peeled
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 carrot, peeled and halved
- Maldon or other sea salt
- 2 1/4 cups boiling water
- Small handful freshly chopped mint
- 1 pomegranate
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
- On the stovetop, brown the lamp, fat-side down, in a large roasting pan.
- Remove when nicely browned across its middle (you won't get much more than this) and set aside while you fry the shallots, garlic and carrot briefly.
- Just tip them into the pan - you won't need to add any more fat - and cook them, sprinkled with the salt, gently for a couple of minutes.
- Pour the water over and then replace the lamb, this time fat side up.
- Let the liquid in the pan come to a boil, then tent with foil and put in the preheated oven.
- Now just leave it there while you sleep.
- I find that if I put the lamb in before I go to bed, it's perfect by lunchtime the next day.
- But the point is, at this temperature, nothing's going to go wrong with the lamb if you cook it for a little less or a little more.
- If you want to cook the lamb the day you're going to eat it, heat the oven to 325 degrees F and give it 5 hours or so.
- The point is to find a way of cooking that suits you: you know what sort of pottering relaxes you and what makes you feel constrained; how much time you've got, and how you want to use it.
- Don't let the food, the kitchen or the imagined expectations of other people bully you.
- With the homily over, about 1 hour before you want to eat, remove the lamb from the pan to a large plate or carving board - not that it needs carving; the deal here is that it's unfashionably overcooked, falling to tender shreds a the touch of a fork.
- This is the best way to deal with shoulder of lamb: it's cheaper than leg, and the flavor it deeper, better, truer, but even good carvers, which I most definitely am not, can get unstuck trying to slice it.
- To finish the lamb salad, simply pull it into pieces with a couple of forks on a large plate.
- Sprinkle with more sea salt and some freshly chopped mint, then cut the pomegranate in 1/2 and dot with the seeds from 1 of the halves.
- This is easily done; there's a simple trick, which means you never have to think of winkling out the jeweled pips with a safety pin ever again.
- Simply hold the pomegranate 1/2 above the plate, take a wooden spoon and start bashing the curved skin side with it.
- Nothing will happen for a few seconds, but have faith.
- In a short while the glassy red, juicy beads will start raining down.
- Take the other 1/2 and squeeze the preposterously pink juices over the warm shredded meat.
- Take to the table and serve.
- What I do with the leftovers is warm a pita bread in the microwave, and then spread it with a greedy dollop of hummus, then take the chill off the refrigerated lamb in the microwave and stuff the already gooey pita with it.
- Add freshly chopped mint, black pepper and whatever else you like; raw, finely chopped red onion goes dangerously well.
lamb shoulder, shallots, garlic, carrot, salt, boiling water, handful freshly, pomegranate
Taken from www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/warm-shredded-lamb-salad-with-mint-and-pomegranate-recipe.html (may not work)