About the Recipe
Oven-smoked lamb shoulder scented with cardamom, smoked paprika & Aleppo pepper. A refined take on Turkish kuzu kol — mahogany bark, fall-apart tender.
Ingredients
1 lb bone-in lamb shoulder | Total time: ∼5 hrs active + overnight marinade
olive oil or tallow
Preparation
1. Marinate overnight inch deep. Rub the spice paste everywhere, into every cut. Wrap tight in plastic. Fridge 12-24 hrs.
2. Set up oven smoker
Take lamb out 1 hr before cooking. Preheat oven to 250°F.
Soak 1/2 cup wood chips in water 30 min, then drain. Put them in a foil tray/packet with holes poked in top. Place it directly on your oven floor or lowest rack.
Set a wire rack over a roasting pan. Add 1/4 cup stock/water to pan — this keeps it humid and catches drips.
3. First smoke phase:
250°F for 2.5-3 hrs Place lamb fat side up on the rack. The wood chips will start smoking at 250°F and give you real smoke flavor.
Bark should look deep red-brown.
If wood stops smoking after 1.5 hrs, add another 1/4 cup soaked chips.
4. Wrap to finish:
300°F for 1-1.5 hrs
Pull the lamb. Remove the wood chip tray.
Wrap lamb tight in butcher paper or foil with a splash of stock. Back in at 300°F The meat should pull easily with a fork.
5. Bark it up:
450°F for 10 min
Unwrap, drain liquid for jus.
Crank oven to 450°F.
Back in uncovered 8-10 min to re-crisp the bark. Brush with pan juices + a little olive oil or Tallow
6. Rest 30-45 min Tent with foil. Don’t skip this or you’ll lose all the juice.
If you do just one thing:
Make a lamb jus from the bones/trimmings and reduce it to syrup. Brush it on every 20 min in the last hour. That’s what separates “great BBQ” from “1-star” gloss and depth.