Lamb shoulder 7 hours, candied, melting, magical and delicious. Do I need to say more?
Watch out, guys! Here we enter a mythical recipe of French grandmother’s gastronomy! A classic for Easter and for other days, an ultra-simple and ultra greedy delight… The 7-hour candied lamb shoulder! But be careful! Don’t start imagining yourself trapped behind the stoves for 7 hours, suffocating in acrid smoke and grease, sweat flowing down your cheeks in the heat of your kitchen! No, no, no, no, no! None of this: the 7 o'clock lamb shoulder is rather the sweet smell of the lamb that slowly confits in its juice, while you read a good book on the terrace, or even while you sleep.
The concept of the 7 o'clock lamb shoulder is simple: a beautiful lamb shoulder, which gently candies with spices in a casserole oven. What do you think? Meat so melting that the very notion of knife seems obsolete, a confit so tasty and fragrant that we have water in the mouth just to feel it. This is the quintessence of what you can do with lamb meat!
So yes, I know, there are those who love pink lamb, who love the mellow of just-cooked meat… I’m one of them too! In fact, we have a great recipe for pink lamb in the oven here. But the 7 o'clock lamb is the kind of dish that would almost make you forget that you’ve been campaigning all your life for the bleeding meat. So how do we do it at home, this little miracle?
7-hour confit lamb shoulder: the recipe
To make a 7-hour lamb, you simply need a good shoulder of lamb (or a leg of lamb), some onions and garlic, fresh herbs and veal stock. Put all this in a well-closed pot and bake at 110 degrees for 7 hours.
And that is it!
Let’s see in detail. For this recipe you will need, for 5-6 people:
1 1 kg lamb shoulder – 1kg5
4 yellow onions
15 cloves pink garlic
Lots of fresh thyme and fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
2 carrots
Veal stock (homemade or powdered)
15 cl dry white wine
a little salt (or smoked salt)
150 g potato rates per person
a few arugula leaves
A very good olive oil
A little bit of butter
Marinade (optional) of the 7-hour lamb shoulder
For starters, what I like to do with this kind of dish is a good marinade. The 7 o'clock lamb is a family dish, which we eat on Easter Monday. It is a trick for which we take the time to do things! After all, Jesus made an effort to come back from the dead to give us an excuse to party at Easter, we can make an effort too! So we take the time and we’ll start this recipe on Sunday morning!
Ingredients
Olive oil
Fresh thyme
Fresh rosemary
Preparation of the marinade for your 7-hour lamb shoulder
It’s very simple. If you eat this Easter Monday lamb, you take your lamb shoulder on Sunday morning. You start by removing the greasy parts of the meat and the skin that has been marked. Then you brush all the meat with very good olive oil, like Kalios olive oil. And then you cover all this with a good amount of thyme and fresh rosemary! Let marinate all day!
Of course, you can skip this step! It serves to perfume the meat a little more, but rest assured, as the lamb will cook 7 hours in a casserole with plenty of spices, it will still be ultra fragrant! Time for the recipe!
Cooking the lamb shoulder for 7 hours
Ingredients
Your lamb shoulder (marinated)
4 yellow onions
10 cloves pink garlic
Thyme, rosemary, rosemary, thyme,
2 bay leaves
2 carrots
15 cl of white wine
Veal stock (powdered or homemade)
Salt (smoked)
Preparation:
Preheat your oven to 110 degrees.
If you marinated your shoulder, drain it and get the oil and spices. In an oven-proof casserole dish (cast iron type) pour some of this oil, and brown your shoulder on all sides, to obtain a nice crust.
Take your meat out of the casserole, then add sliced yellow onion and two sliced carrots. Sauté for 2 minutes, then deglaze with the white wine. Reduce for 1 minute. Put your meat back in the pan, salt, and add the veal stock to mid-height.
Add on top of your 3 yellow onions, peeled and quartered, your garlic cloves, thyme and rosemary and bay leaves. Close your casserole and bake at 110 degrees for 6 h 30/ 7 h. The ideal is to cook before going to bed. The next morning, the lamb will be cooked and will have cooled a little. You can then take it out of the pot delicately (not to break it).
Then pick up the garlic cloves and the onions on one side, the juice on the other. If it is too liquid, reduce the juice it will have a wonderful taste of lamb, thyme and rosemary, a real delight. All you have to do is serve, with a few melting potatoes (recipe below), and some arugula for freshness.
Wrestle with the casserole?
For this recipe, it is generally recommended to struggle the casserole before cooking, that is to seal the casserole with a dead dough (a kind of bread dough). This is supposed to prevent air from coming out, avoid evaporation of the liquid and prevent food from drying out. In fact, the more I make this recipe, the more I tell myself it’s not necessary. Since there is a lot of liquid in the casserole dish, evaporation is not a problem on the contrary! It will allow the sauce to concentrate in taste by reducing a little. And since the casserole is closed anyway, the evaporation is low anyway. Personally, I avoid this step!
What should I serve the lamb at 7 o'clock? Recipe for melting potatoes
Well, I admit that when you have such a good dish, you are tempted to eat it yourself… Or you wonder what will go best with this delicacy. French fries? Gratin dauphinoise? No! Such melting and tasty meat deserves the simplest toppings. I find that the best way to serve this dish is small potatoes of rates, or grilles, cooked gently in a casserole.
Ingredients
150 g potato rates per person
a little bit of butter
a dash of olive oil
5 cloves of garlic
1 sprig thyme and rosemary
a little bit of salt
Preparation
Wash your potatoes without peeling them.
Pour a dash of olive oil into a heavy-bottomed casserole or casserole. Sauté your potatoes with the skin in the oil over high heat to brown them slightly. Salt, then lower the heat. Add the garlic cloves in a shirt, the thyme and rosemary branches, and a large nut of butter. Let the potatoes melt over low heat for about 30 minutes.
Here we go, here we go! For training, simply put your 7-hour lamb shoulder a large dish or on a large slate, surrounded by potatoes and garlic cloves confit, as well as onions. Serve the reduced juice (if necessary filtered) in a bowl. When setting up the plates, cut off your shoulder, making sure you don’t make too much of a lump. Place a piece in each plate with your toppings, and drizzle with good juice!
And here you are, you have a perfect recipe with almost no effort. The meat is melting, it unravels without any problem to the point that we call this dish “lamb with a spoon”. The juice is concentrated, full of flavours, a real delight. And you add to that crisp-melting potatoes. It’s just the intersidereal kiff. And when you think that all this was done by itself while you were in bed, it’s even more enjoyable.
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