Slow cooked Lamb Shoulder. How Slow ? How Low ?

The phrase 'low and slow' has become something of a buzzword in home cooking over the past decade and ever since the rise and rise of food costs 3 years ago nothing could be more fashionable.

Gone now are the halcyon days of fillet steak and pan fried duck breast in flavour of the more modern penny pinching cuts such as cheek and leg. Cheaper cuts maybe, but with awesome depth of flavour. Something michelin starred cuisine has known for some time now. Why is it that people will pay between £25 + on a piece of meat that costs less than a £2.50 and yet supermarkets apparently cant shift them in enough bulk to make it worth their while ?

Things do seem to be improving however, I noted pigs trotters in waitrose the other day and pork belly is now readily available. How long will it be before we see pigs heads and bone marrow ? ...Fingers crossed.

So what is the secret of these tougher cuts of meat. Why are they so flavorsome and how do we maximize that flavour ? 

The main differences between a cheaper cut and a prime cut are the connective tissues, the collagen (the primary protein in connective tissues) and the fat content. Prime cuts of beef are mostly free from connective tissues and collagen. When you fry a piece of tough meat the fatty sinus tighten up and shrink the meat and the collagen doesn't have long enough to break down and dissolve. So what your left with is a nasty piece of tough cooked meat. 

On a prime cut the fat is thin and nicely marbled and enhances the flavour of the meat without you having to chew though big chunks of fat. On cheaper cuts what you have is basically big chunks of fat which need to be rendered somehow. 

So in order to cook the meat properly we need to render all these things down.

Most people just cook the shit out of them, which makes perfect sense given that traditional rational says you need to cook them at high temperatures in order for all these nasties to melt. Stew, roast or braise any of these will do the trick. The connective tissues given a long enough timeline and a high enough heat will eventually break down and leave you with a succulent flavorsome feast.

So thats it then ? That's all we need to do or know ?...well not quite. 

While cooking at high temperatures (and by high I'm talking anything over 100oC) we loose a great deal of the products weight. The meat itself becomes dryer and eventually a little tough. When we cook using any method (except microwave cooking, which I think we can ignore) the heat is conducted through the meat from the outside to the inside. Meaning that whenever we reach our perfect medium rare in the centre of the cut, the outside will have already exceeded that temperature by a long way, and lost a lot of moisture in the process. So in effect even the most perfect roast will have some areas that are less than perfect and the bigger the cut the bigger the imperfection. This is not to say that its bad to cook this way or wrong on any level but it can be improved upon if that's your bag.

Truth is cooking anything above 70oC will result in some moisture loss. Collagen on the other hand we are told rapidly dissolves at 90oC and begins dissolving at 70oC. Which leaves us with the problem that in order for us to melt the collagen we must cook at temperatures that make moisture loss unavoidable. 

Luckily thats not the case at all. Collagen actually begins shrinking somewhere between 50 and 70oC and given a long enough time line will eventually dissolve. Also Chemicals in the collegian once broken down apparently start tenderizing the meat giving an even better result. 

The last bit of the puzzle however is one less concerned with meat quality and more concerned with health and safety (dull dull dull, I know). 

At any temperatures below 60oC we a faced with the dreaded danger zone temperatures. Meaning that if we want to cook our meat safely we are only allowed in this zone for less than 4 hours (1 hour if your being ultra safe). Which is hardly long enough to cook a rump steak at these temperatures never mind a whole shoulder. 

Personally, given a good enough meat I'd happily cook at 56oC, which I'v cooked at before for a 72 hour veal shoulder. As long as I pan fried the outside afterwords I'd happily take the risk (which I have to say isn't a huge one at all). But assuming you want to play by the rules 63 degrees is perfectly acceptable.

How long do I cook for is the last problem. For this I researched the egullet boards and came to the conclusion that none of them had a clue. The longest anyone had tried was 36 hours and the results seemed to yield only marginally satisfactory results. As I knew my 56oC experiment needed 72 hours I figured I'd just go bang in the middle. So 56 hours it was.  

And this was the result .

The hole you see in the meat was where the shoulder bone just fell out...yes I said fell out. You will notice that not only has the collagen and fat rendered to nothing but the meat is still pink and right the way though . So much in fact you'd think it was pork and no I have not done anything in photoshop except resize it for my blog. 

I know its unlikely that most of you will have the time or equipment to cook this way. Not all of you are stupid enough to have a home sous vide kitchen but it still leaves you with some great knowledge that can be of use even if you don't go to these extremes. Low is anything below 70oC and slow is your whole weekend or indeed maybe your whole week. 

Just while I'm at it however this is one of the things I knocked up with the result. 

Glazed Shoulder with Roast potatoes, Pea and Mint puree and ras el hanout caramel.

It was top.

Comments

[Mark]

Very interesting. One thing I need to know did you sit in the house for 56 hours whilst it cooked?

[Thewaroncookbooks]

Ip sits in a bath of mildly hot water. Worst thing that could happen would be our cat ducking lamb.

Slow cooked cat would make an interesting follow up.

[Maclauk]

To maintain these steady temperatures I assume you use a water bath. Have you any experience of achieving and maintaining these temperatures in a covered tray or pot in the oven?

Certainly the evaporation will lower the temperature of the braising stock to lower than the air temperature of the oven. Any advice you have would be appreciated.