Roast Shoulder Of Lamb With Caramelized Baby Onions And Honey Recipes

Steps:

• Cut the meat into 6 or 8 pieces, and put it into a wide pan with 2 tablespoons oil over medium heat; turn to brown the pieces all over. Add the chopped onion and barely cover with water. Stir in salt and pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and saffron, and simmer, covered, over a low heat for 1 1/2 hours, turning the pieces over a few times.
• To peel the onions or shallots, blanch them in boiling water for 5 minutes and, when cool enough to handle, peel off the skins and trim the roots. Sauté them in a skillet in 2 tablespoons oil over a low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, shaking the pan, until the onions have slightly colored. Then add them to the meat and cook for a further 30 minutes, until the meat is very tender and the baby onions are so soft that, as they say in Morocco, "you can crush them with your tongue." Toward the end of the cooking time, cook uncovered to reduce the sauce. There should be only a small amount of liquid remaining.
• Wash the pears. Quarter and core them but do not peel them. Sauté them in a large skillet in a mixture of butter and the remaining tablespoon of oil over medium heat until their cut sides are slightly brown and caramelized. If they have not softened right through (that depends on their size and degree of ripeness), put them into the pan over the meat, skin side up, and continue to cook, covered, until they are very tender. It could be 15 minutes, but you must watch them as they can quickly fall apart.
• Serve the meat with the pears, arranged skin side up, on top.
• variations
• Stir in 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of clear honey when you put in the pears, and adjust the seasoning so that there is enough salt and plenty of pepper to mitigate the sweetness.
• Add 1/2 cup blanched almonds to the meat at the start. They will soften during the cooking.
• Instead of pears, sharp green apples, such as Granny Smiths, may be used.
• Use veal instead of lamb.

Steps:

• In a large bowl, toss all ingredients except the beef stock until well blended. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours, tossing occasionally.
• Preheat the oven to 425°F. Transfer the contents of the refrigerated bowl to a roasting pan large enough to accommodate a single layer of vegetables covered by a single layer of meat. Add the stock and roast, basting and turning the lamb frequently, until the meat is very tender, about 1 hour 45 minutes.
• Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. Remove the lamb from the pan and set it aside. Skim and discard as much fat as possible from the pan liquids. Place the pan over high heat and boil until the liquids reduce to about 1 1/4 cups. Transfer the meat to a smaller roasting pan and strain the reduced sauce over it. Place the meat in the oven and roast, turning meat every 10 minutes, until extremely tender, brown, and caramelized, about 30-40 minutes.
• Strain the juices from the pan and, if necessary, reduce further over moderately high heat; there should be 1/2 cup of finished sauce. Transfer the lamb to a serving platter and spoon the sauce over it.
• Recommended wine-I like Abbazia di Rosazzo's Ronco dei Roseti with roast baby lamb.