Lamb Raan

I love a curry.

The old staples of tikka masala, garlic naan and bhajis were always my favourite and as a family we got a takeaway every Friday to the point were they knew us (and our order) by sight. Having munched our way through a massive range of Indian cuisine in nearby Birmingham (The Indian Streatery, Lasan, Indico, Indian Brewery etc.) Polly and I have concluded that Asha’s and more specifically their President’s platter is really where it’s at. The platter is basically a giant sharing dish with tandoori chicken, gargantuan prawns, lamb cutlets, sheik kebabs and a load of delicious sauces and pickles. The centrepiece can be either a lobster, or a slow-cooked spiced lamb leg. It is amazing and is one of the main reasons why I cannot wait for restaurants to open again; it’s a proper special occasion dish. Fair warning – to get the best out of the meal, don’t eat for about 3 days beforehand. They also do an extraordinary cocktail called the Chairman’s Special which is a Cognac base, with a load of spices added and then flamed just before serving at the table – magic. Just before the pandemic, a branch of Dishoom opened on the edge of Chamberlain Square, opposite the Birmingham Museum. We’d been to the one in King’s Cross a couple of times and loved it and managed to get into the soft opening. Among the many dishes we ordered, we opted for the Lamb Raan which is not dissimilar to the lamb on the President’s Platter. Quite lightly spiced and fall-apart tender it was really good and there was a lot of it, which meant that we took a load home with us when we eventually rolled out feeling like Cool Hand Luke after winning his egg bet.

Now this isn’t a restaurant review, but the above is an important bit of background into what I cooked this weekend. The intention was to recreate the lamb centrepiece from the President’s Platter, but to put a bit of a smoky live fire twist onto it. I got the Dishoom cook book for my birthday last year and Lamb Raan is in it so that’s where I started. The book is a very lovely thing indeed, especially the opening chapter called “Welcome to Bombay” which is beautifully written and a very evocative account of the city and its food history.

It’s a dish that needs a lot of time, both for marinating and for cooking but as with most recipes of this kind, the actual contact time for the chef is relatively short. You need to get marinating the day before you want to eat. For Big Green Egg owners, doing lamb low and slow usually means a shoulder joint, but Lamb Raan is based on a leg. I admit I was a little skeptical at first about whether I was going to be able to achieve that unctuous pull-apart tenderness of lamb shoulder, but it works and the results are really good. Sometimes I feel there is just a little too much fat in a shoulder, so the leg makes a nice change and produces a pile of firm, juicy meat with a lovely bite to it and without the blobs of fat. You’re going to need a dish or a pot that you can get your whole lamb joint in. If it has a lid, great, if not then foil works just as well.

Let’s assume we’re having this for Sunday lunch…

Saturday Morning

Pat your lamb leg dry with kitchen paper and give it a few deepish slashes in a grid pattern to help the marinade get in. Mix together a couple of teaspoons of salt and the same of chilli powder and sprinkle this all over your lamb, working it into the slashes with your fingers. Rest back in the fridge for about half an hour. Meanwhile, make a paste of garlic and ginger and when your 30 minutes is up, massage this in over the top of the chilli and salt mixture. Cover the whole lot with cling film and return to the fridge for up to 24 hours – the longer the better.

Sunday Morning

Work backwards from the time you want to have lunch. The dish takes about 5 hours to cook, so I reckoned I wanted to start cooking about 8:30. My Egg takes about 30 minutes to settle down for low and slow cooking so I set my alarm for 7:30. Take the lamb out of the fridge, but keep the cling film on while it wards off a bit of the early morning chill. Adjust the vents and aim for a dome temperature of 150C. For the first part of the cook, Lay the lamb on the bars and let it smoke with some apple chunks for about 45 minutes. While this is happening, gather together a couple of bay leaves, 4 cloves, a teaspoon of whole peppercorns and squash a few cardamom pods with the flat of your knife. Measure out about 75ml of malt vinegar and boil a kettle.

Pre-heat your cooking pot to prevent your Egg temperature from dropping when it goes in. To the pot, add the smoked lamb, the spices and vinegar. Pour in enough boiling water to come about half way up the lamb – be careful to pour towards the edge of your pot as you don’t want to wash off the marinade by mistake. Cover the pot with its lid or foil and put it back in the Egg for about 3 and a half hours. Check every 45 minutes minutes or so and add a bit more water if the level has dropped down. You’ll know it’s ready when the leg bone pulls out without much resistance. Once it’s cooked, take the pot out and leave it to rest still covered.

When rested, take the lamb out of its pot and shred/chop the flesh. Pour the cooking liquor into a jug, sieving the spices out as you go. Put the shredded lamb back into the pot and then add the liquor to it a little at a time, tasting as you go until you are happy. You can put in a dash of lime juice if you like; I’ve added pomegranate seeds in the past which give a nice fruity hit but you don’t need them.

Polly makes a great carrot, pea and potato side dish to go with the lamb and it goes brilliantly with naan bread. Onion bhajis are a must (make them yourself if you can). If you are feeling really jazzy, knock up a flaming cognac cocktail too…