Braised lamb shoulder with cacao and cardamom

SERVES 8

‘Admittedly, on the surface this dish seems a bit odd. Cacao, pumpkin, cardamom, lamb? This is an example, however, of a technique we use at Alinea called “flavour bouncing”. You basically take a focus ingredient and begin to bounce satellite flavours off it. The rule is, not only do the supporting ingredients have to go with the main ingredient, but they all must go with each other. For instance, lamb goes with eggplant and lamb goes with cardamom, but does cardamom go with eggplant? Yes. You continue the bouncing of ingredients off one another until the dish is complete.’

BOUQUET GARNI

• 50 g cacao nibs

• 30 g coriander seeds

• 30 g Darjeeling tea leaves

• 12 g fennel seeds

• 10 g green cardamom pods, bruised

• 7 g whole mace (see ‘Note’)

• 5 g cumin seeds

• 2 dried bay leaves

LAMB

• 2.5 kg lamb shoulder, bone in

• 150 ml canola or grapeseed oil

• 3 onions, cut into large dice

• 2 small fennel bulbs, cubed

• 75 g ginger, grated finely

• 50 g cake wheat flour

• 40 g garlic cloves (about ½ a head of garlic), chopped finely

• 30 g long red chillies, sliced thinly

• 4 lemongrass stalks, trimmed and bruised with the back of a knife

• 10 ml hot yellow curry powder

• a large pinch of saffron threads

• 250 ml lime juice

• 200 g brown sugar

• 2 ℓ beef stock

• 800 g eggplant, cut into 2.5 cm cubes

• 800 g pumpkin, peeled, cut into 2.5cm cubes

• 370g crème fraîche

• fresh coriander, mint and finely grated lime rind, to serve

1. MAKE THE BOUQUET GARNI: Place ingredients on a square of muslin cloth, gather up the corners to form a pouch and secure with kitchen twine.

2. BRAISE THE LAMB: Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Heat a large roasting pan over medium-high heat.

3. Season lamb shoulder generously. Add oil to the pan and when it starts to smoke, add lamb boneside up and rotate to brown evenly (5–6 minutes), then turn and brown on the other side. Transfer to a tray.

4. Reduce heat to medium and add