Shoulder is the lamb cut that wants time. It is not a chop and it is not a pink leg. Collagen in the shoulder melts into a sauce if you give it hours; rush it and you have a tough stew. 1kg Hogget Lamb Bone-in Shoulder Chunks is a kilo of bone-in hogget shoulder, which is a pot for four. It sits in lamb shoulder and slow cooker meat.
Oven shoulder stew
Brown the chunks in batches, 3 to 4 minutes, in a casserole. Onion, garlic, a spoon of tomato puree, stock or a tin of tomatoes, maybe a few anchovies if you have them. Liquid halfway up. Lid on, 160°C for 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours, until a piece of shoulder yields between two forks. Hogget is a slightly older lamb and it has more flavour; it still wants the same long wet cook, not a grill. Rest 10 minutes. If the sauce is thin, boil it. Serve on mash or with barley. This is not a carving joint; it is a spoon dinner, and that is a virtue.
Slow cooker
Same brown, then low 7 to 8 hours. Shoulder is one of the cuts that is better the next day. Lamb Shanks X2 are the board-presentation version of the same idea — two plates, more bone, same afternoon. A whole leg from legs of lamb is the pink roast if that is the meal you actually wanted; do not slow-cook a carvery leg into shoulder texture unless you meant to. Shop lamb joints when you want to compare a roastable joint with these chunks.
What not to do
Do not try to pan-fry shoulder chunks like steaks. Do not cook them from frozen in a dry tray at 200°C. Defrost, brown, lid on. A kilo of chunks plus potatoes and a vegetable is a cheaper Sunday than a small dry leg rushed for two people. Leftover shoulder, picked off the bone, makes a next-day wrap or a pasta with the leftover sauce. Freeze the leftover liquor; it is lamb stock you already made.
Hogget shoulder chunks are not a beginner grill. They are a beginner pot, which is a different and kinder skill: brown, add liquid, wait. If you wanted pink lamb in 15 minutes, you wanted chops. Keep both in the order if the week has a grill night and a stew night; they are not substitutes for each other.
Brown, lid on, wait until it shreds. That is lamb shoulder, and it is the cut that makes lamb a week-night pot as well as a Sunday centrepiece.
