Braised lamb shoulder is the perfect special-occasion meal

It's lamb week on Mess Hall

I like to think of this time of year—after we’ve survived both the tyranny of the holidays and the temperance bonanza of dry January—as Dinner Party Season.

Valentine’s Day is, of course, around the corner, but so is the last stretch of February-into-March that requires us to make our own fun. It might be a terrifying 60 degrees out, but spring still isn’t what I’d call “close”; the bare trees outside my window are still depressing. In this time of drudgery I find that planning a special-occasion meal can help lift the spirits and add some color to a social calendar gone into post-holiday hibernation. It might require a little extra shopping and a little extra labor, but it’s far cheaper than booking a flight to Miami.

alain robbe-grill it @negaversace

What if somebody was like “I’m having an amazing February”

Last fall I made the braised lamb shoulder from chef Reem Assil’s excellent 2022 cookbook Arabiyya for one of those dinner parties where you do a little too much but it turns out perfectly. It’s not a five-ingredient 30-minute meal, and of course that’s the fun of it. I’ve been thinking it would make the perfect Valentine’s Day dinner: fun to make and fun to eat; will leave your kitchen full of delicious bits and bobs. (If you’re looking for a last-minute present to go with it, I think this silly-elegant cauliflower candle would do the trick.)

The recipe requires a handful of building blocks: one or two spice mixes, depending on how much time you’ve got, which are then added to a garlicky marinade; a large hunk of lamb to marinate overnight; a batch of garlicky toum; some pickled onions which no you should never skip. The recipe as written calls for homemade flatbread, but I made it on a Wednesday so I went with a batch of cumin rice¹.

Lamb, with lots of garnishes and Reem’s fattoush

When I am planning a special occasion dinner—whether it’s a romantic thing or a dinner party for friends—my mind almost always jumps to a braised meat. It’s a technique that front loads the labor, meaning that when people arrive your apartment will smell amazing and there will be a pot of something well on its way cooking; ideally you won’t have too much to do between pulling it out of the oven and putting it on the table. Slow-cooking a big hunk of well-marinated meat produces deep and pronounced capital-f Flavor, and often creates a built-in sauce or gravy to serve with dinner.

I have long wanted to get better acquainted with lamb as an ingredient; having “gotten into cooking” as a vegetarian, I have a bunch of meaty blind spots and this is one of them. A braise often feels like a safe entry point into a new type of protein: unlike a high-stakes steak, which can go sideways when left a few minutes too long on the stove and leave you bereft over a wasted $50 tomahawk, a braise is difficult to fuck up. (Short ribs, of course, are one of the best examples of this.) It’s no surprise that Reem’s lamb shoulder called out to me: this was an occasion dish, inspired by the holiday lamb roasts she grew up with and the whole-animal barbecuing she’s developed a love for as a chef. It’s quite simple in process, its flavor relying on those spice mixtures and the pomegranate molasses used for braising, which adds an extra layer of caramelization to the finished product. The rest is just smart garnishing. 

It turned out to be one of the most delicious things I cooked last year, a real party of a dish, the crew went nuts for it. Even better were the leftovers I hoarded for myself, shreddy bits of lamb crisped up in a pan that I served over freezer roti smeared with labneh. The shreds got crispy but thanks to plenty of fat they never dried out—it was, as Reem has since pointed out, like lamb carnitas, a dish I still dream of and am eager to return to.

I forgot I added roasted squash to this?? Soooo crispy