I’ve been pushing my boundaries with how I cook lamb on the BBQ this summer, and am finding more and more wonderful ways to BBQ lamb, lamb and fire work so well together, I wanted to come up with an Indian inspired Tikka lamb shoulder recipe, slow cooked so the lamb pulls apart, and yet still with the crisp sear you get from tandoor style meats. I paired this up with some pilau rice and charred peppers for a flavour packed feast. I do hope you’ll try this one, as it’s so good, and particularly easy to make.
Marinade your lamb
You can cook this with a whole lamb shoulder, and will need to increase the cooking times accordingly if you do, but I wen for the top half of the lamb shoulder, this would equate to the pork butt on a pig, and is a nice size, this one was from my friends at The Devon Meat Box Co. I scored the skin side with a diamond pattern with a sharp knife, to allow the marinade to get further in, (it also looks pretty).
Then I made up a marinade with 6 tablespoons of natural yoghurt, 2 teaspoons of Tikka spice mix, and an optional teaspoon of beetroot powder (this gives it a lovely colour) a squeeze of lemon juice, and a pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Mix this all together and spread over the lamb, place in a plastic container or bag and leave in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight.
BBQ tikka lamb
Get the BBQ going..
Fire up your BBQ or smoker for a gentle indirect heat, I leave out any heat deflectors or pans so the lamb sees a little direct heat to crisp things up better, but you don’t want to cook it too quickly, a temperature of 140 c is about right. I didn’t go for any smoking wood for this cook, but just used good quality lumpwood charcoal. As long as your BBQ has a lid you can cook a big chunk of meat like this relatively slowly. I cooked mine on a ProQ bullet smoker with the water pan removed.
The lamb cooked slowly like this for around 5-6 hours, until the skin had crisped up, and the meat was tender and falling apart, you’re looking for around 90 c for the meat to pull.
I cooked up a pan full of pilau rice and seared off a few sweet peppers over the coals, and served with yoghurt, coriander and a lovely fruity chutney.
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