Slow-Roasted Shoulder With a Sticky Sunday Glaze

When I was a boy in Guadeloupe, lamb was a celebration. Not a Tuesday. Not a quick thing you threw in a pan. When my mother bought a shoulder of lamb from the market in Pointe-à-Pitre, we knew something was coming: a christening, a first communion, a big Sunday when the whole family would sit down together. She would make colombo de mouton, the lamb curry we love in the islands, spiced with the colombo powder the Indian families brought to Guadeloupe generations ago. The pot went on early. The smell filled the yard. And you learned to be patient, because good lamb does not hurry.

I have carried that patience into my own kitchen here in the UK. This recipe is not my mother’s colombo, not exactly. It is my own thing. I take a whole shoulder of lamb, I rub it with the warm island spices I grew up on, and I roast it long and slow until the meat gives up and falls off the bone. Then, right at the end, I glaze it with my Full Feast BBQ Sauce and turn the heat up high so the outside goes sticky and dark and caramelised.

It is the meeting of two worlds I love: the slow Sunday cooking of my island, and the smoke and stickiness of good barbecue. Let me show you how I make it. The proper way. The way that makes people go quiet at the table.

Recipe at a glance

• Cuisine: French Caribbean (Guadeloupe)
• Prep: 20 minutes • Cook: 4 hours 30 minutes • Total: 4 hours 50 minutes
• Serves: 6
• Featured sauce: BBQ Sauce
• Heat level: 4/10, warm and smoky, not fierce
• Diet: dairy free

What you’ll need

A shoulder of lamb is the cut for this. Not the leg. The leg is leaner and it wants a quicker roast, but the shoulder is full of fat and connective tissue, and that is exactly what you want when you cook something for four hours. All of that melts down and bastes the meat from the inside, and you end up with something so tender you can pull it apart with a spoon. Ask your butcher for a bone-in shoulder, around 2kg. The bone gives you flavour, and it tells you when the meat is ready, because it will wiggle loose.

Everything here is easy to find. The spices are cupboard spices. The one jar that does the heavy lifting is my BBQ Sauce, which goes on right at the end.

For the lamb and the rub:

• 1 bone-in lamb shoulder, about 2kg
• 6 garlic cloves
• A thumb of fresh ginger, about 30g
• 1 tbsp ground allspice (pimento)
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp dried thyme, or the leaves from 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• Juice of 1 lime
• 2 tbsp olive oil

For the roasting tin:

• 2 onions, sliced thick
• 300ml vegetable stock
• 4 bay leaves

For the sticky glaze:

• 6 tbsp Full Feast BBQ Sauce, plus more to serve
• 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
• A splash of the pan juices

To finish:

• 2 spring onions, chopped
• A few lime wedges

How I make it

1. First, the paste. Peel your garlic and ginger and drop them into a small blender with the allspice, cumin, coriander, turmeric, thyme, salt, pepper, lime juice and olive oil. Blitz it into a rough, wet paste. No blender? No problem. Grate the garlic and ginger, then stir everything together in a bowl. You want it loose enough to spread.

2. Now the lamb. Sit the shoulder in a large dish and take a sharp knife to it. Score the top all over, cutting into the fat but not all the way down to the meat. These little cuts let the spice get inside, and they let the fat render out later. This is where the flavour lives, so do not skip it.

3. Rub the paste all over the lamb, top and bottom, working it right into the scores with your hands. Do not be shy. Get under the folds. Cover the dish and let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours. If you have the time, leave it overnight. The longer it rests, the deeper the island flavour goes.

4. When you are ready to cook, take the lamb out and let it come up to room temperature for half an hour. Cold meat straight from the fridge cooks unevenly. While it sits, heat your oven to 160°C fan, or 180°C conventional, Gas mark 4.

5. Scatter the sliced onions and the bay leaves across the base of a deep roasting tin. Pour in the stock. This is your bed. Sit the lamb straight on top of the onions, so it steams and roasts at the same time and the juices catch below.

6. Cover the whole tin tightly with foil. Tuck it in around the edges so no steam escapes. Slide it into the oven and now you wait. Four hours. Go and do something else. After two hours, lift the foil and spoon some of the pan juices back over the meat, then seal it up again. This keeps it moist.

7. After four hours, check it. The meat should be soft enough to pull with a fork, and the bone should feel loose when you wiggle it. If it is still holding tight, give it another half an hour. Lamb shoulder is forgiving. It does not dry out easily, so you cannot really overdo it.

8. Now the good part. Make the glaze: stir the BBQ Sauce with the brown sugar and a spoonful of the hot pan juices until it loosens into a shiny lacquer. Take the foil right off the lamb. Brush half the glaze all over the top, thick and generous.

9. Turn the oven up to 220°C fan, or 240°C conventional, Gas mark 9. Put the lamb back in, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes. Halfway through, brush on the rest of the glaze. Watch it go dark and sticky and shining. That is the caramelising happening, the sugar in the sauce turning to a proper crust.

10. Take it out and let it rest under a loose sheet of foil for 20 minutes. Do not rush this. Resting lets the juices settle back into the meat instead of running out on the board.

11. To serve, pull the meat apart with two forks, right there in the tin so it soaks up the juices, or carve it into thick pieces. Spoon over the oniony juices from the bottom. Scatter the spring onions on top, squeeze over a little lime, and put extra BBQ Sauce on the table for the ones who want more.

The role of BBQ Sauce in this dish

For four hours, this lamb is all about the island: the allspice, the thyme, the warmth of the cumin and turmeric. Beautiful, but soft and rounded. What it needs at the end is an edge. That is where my BBQ Sauce comes in.

My BBQ Sauce is smoky and rich, Caribbean in its bones, with a gentle warmth that sits at the back rather than punching you in the mouth. When you brush it on and blast the heat, the sugar in the sauce caramelises against the spiced fat of the lamb. You get that dark, sticky, almost lacquered crust, the kind that catches on your fingers. The smoke of the sauce meets the sweetness of the slow-roasted meat, and the two hold hands. It ties the whole thing together. Without it, you have lovely lamb. With it, you have something people remember.

Tips from my kitchen

• Buy bone-in. I know a boned and rolled shoulder is easier to carve, but the bone gives you flavour and keeps the meat moist. And when the bone slides free, you know dinner is ready.
• Do not throw away the pan juices. Under that lamb is liquid gold: onions, stock, spiced fat and meat juices. Skim off the top fat if you like, then spoon the rest over everything. That is your gravy, and it costs you nothing.
• Season the night before. If you can rub the lamb and leave it in the fridge overnight, do it. It is the single easiest way to make the flavour go deeper, and it costs you no extra effort on the day.
• Glaze late, not early. If you put the BBQ Sauce on at the start, the sugar burns over four hours. Keep it for the last half hour, when the high heat can turn it sticky instead of bitter.
• Rest, always rest. Twenty minutes under foil is not wasted time. It is the difference between juicy meat and a dry board.

What to serve it with

This lamb wants soft, comforting things around it to soak up all those juices. Back home we would have rice and peas, and I still do: the coconut and kidney beans are perfect against the rich meat. A pile of buttery mash works too if you are keeping it British.

For something fresh on the side, a green salad or some quick-cooked greens cut through the richness. I like to drizzle my Fresh Herbal Sauce over the greens, all that parsley and garlic waking everything up. And if you want a bit of crunch, a sharp slaw is your friend.

If you are feeding a crowd who like it hotter, put a bottle of Caribbean Hot Sauce on the table alongside the BBQ Sauce. Everyone builds their own plate that way, and nobody gets more heat than they asked for. Want to make it a proper island feast? Have a look at our sauce bundles so you have a few jars ready for the whole spread.

FAQ

What is the best cut of lamb for slow roasting?

Shoulder, every time, for a recipe like this. It has more fat and more connective tissue than the leg, and that is what you want when you cook it low and slow, because it all melts down and keeps the meat tender and juicy. Leg of lamb is leaner and better suited to a faster roast where you want pink meat in the middle. For pull-apart lamb, go shoulder.

Can I make this Caribbean lamb in a slow cooker?

You can. Rub the lamb the same way, brown it briefly in a hot pan if you have time, then sit it on the onions in the slow cooker with the stock. Cook it on low for about 8 hours until it falls apart. You will not get the sticky glaze in the pot, though, so lift the lamb out, brush it with the BBQ Sauce glaze, and finish it under a hot grill or in a hot oven for 15 minutes to caramelise the top. That step is worth it.

Can I prepare it ahead of time?

Yes, and it is a good dish for entertaining. Do the whole slow roast the day before, then cool and chill the lamb in its juices. On the day, warm it through gently, covered, then glaze and blast it hot to bring back the sticky crust. It is even more relaxed than cooking it fresh, and the flavour is just as good.

Is this recipe gluten free and dairy free?

Dairy free, yes: all my Full Feast sauces are vegan, and there is no butter or cream anywhere in this recipe. Gluten free, not as written, because the BBQ Sauce contains a cereal-derived vinegar that is declared on its label. If you are cooking for someone who needs it to be, swap in a certified gluten-free barbecue sauce for the glaze and check your stock too, as some stock cubes are not.

How spicy is this lamb?

Gentle. My BBQ Sauce brings warmth and smoke rather than real heat, so this sits around a 4 out of 10, mild enough for the whole table. If you want fire, reach for my Flaming BBQ Sauce in the glaze instead, or simply pass a hotter sauce round at the table for the ones who like to sweat a little.

Final word from me

There is no rushing a shoulder of lamb, and that is the whole point. You put it in, you walk away, and four hours later the house smells like a celebration and the meat falls off the bone. Cook it on a Sunday. Feed the people you love. Put the extra sauce on the table and let everyone dig in with their hands. That is how we eat back home, and there is no better way I know. Go on, give it a try.

JP