148/18 – Hogget Shawarma:
Some time back Angus & Oink sent me four rubs for me to create some recipes with. It’s taken me a while but here is the fourth recipe, this time using the Shawarma rub.
The Shawarma rub is available from the Angus & Oink website – £6 for 200g.
My previous Angus & Oink recipes can be seen here:
THE MEAT:
The best quality and best tasting lamb I have eaten is from Briggs Shetland Lamb. The lambs spend their days on a rough pasture croft on the island of Shetland. The breed is naturally smaller with a finished lamb weighing 8kg to 14kg compared to other breeds at 17kg to 22kg. Richard compares his lambs to Oranges and Tangerines, the smaller ones are juicier!
The hogget was 18 months old and cost me £100 fully butchered and delivered. If you live in Scotland Richard might be able to deliver it in person on his way to the restaurants in Glasgow and Edinburgh. If you live further away you can order through Fresh Food Express who will courier the meat to you.
In the box:
- 2 leg joints which include the chump
- 2 racks of rib chops (Not French trimmed)
- 2 racks of loin chops
- 2 shoulder joints
- Neck
- and pieces of flank
The cut selected for this cook was a shoulder of hogget.
The Prep:
The shoulder weighed 2kg and the Shawarma rub recommends 8% of meat weight so I weighed out 160g of the Shawarma rub and mixed it with some rapeseed oil. I made a bag with the foodsaver, put the hogget shoulder in and poured the rub/oil mixture in. With gloves on I rubbed it all into the meat then sealed the bag and left it in the fridge for 24 hours.
On the day of the cook I made some dough for the flatbreads using the same recipe from my Chicken Gyro cook. 400g strong bread flour, 18g dried yeast, 1 tablespoon salt, 2 teaspoons sugar, 2 teaspoons olive oil, 175 ml milk and 115 ml lukewarm water.
All the dried ingredients are added to a bowl and mixed slowly before the wet ingredients are added (add the yeast to the wet ingredients). This was left for a couple of hours then balled up.
Time for the meat to come out of the bag. Fantastic colours!
The Kamado Joe was still pretty full with the Resilient Woodlands Oak from the last cook so I just re-lit it with a couple of flamers. Both vents open and I left it for 30 minutes until it approached 350F at which point I closed the vents down to 1/4 open.
The Cook:
Two chunks of oak dropped in, heat deflectors in place, roasting tray under the grill to catch and mess then hogget on the grill. Meater probe inserted and set to 92C internal.
Whilst the hogget was cooking I prepared red onion, mint yoghurt, pomegranate seeds and chopped coriander. 
After 2h45 the hogget was at 92C on the Meater:
I took the hogget off and left it to rest whilst I cooked the breads.
I fired up the Thuros T1 with two handfuls of Oxford Charcoal Oak Lumpwood and left it 10 minutes before placing a Lodge 26cm Skillet on top. A bit of oil then I stretched and shaped the dough by hand and placed it in the pan to cook. Just a couple of minutes each side. When each bread was cooked I placed it in a freezer bag, this is a great tip I picked up a while ago. The heat creates steam that keeps the breads warm and soft.
When all the bread was cooked I pulled the meat off the shoulder, it came off really easily. It tasted amazing and would have been awesome served like that but colour wise it looked pretty much like any pulled lamb so I boosted it by heating some oil and adding more Shawarma rub. Once mixed and heated I poured it into the meat and mixed it together. The result was some amazing coloured meat! The flavour profile changed slightly, the rub is quite sweet from the sugar so the meat was a bit sweeter but I enjoyed the taste from the Shawarma rub and the smoked meat.
Time to Serve:
Bread, mint yoghurt, meat, red onion, pomegranate seeds and coriander. I was so hungry by now!
SUMMARY:
This was a fantastic dish. The hogget was top quality as always but the Shawarma rub worked really well with it. The dish was tastier than I imagined it would have been so I was really happy!
Smoking and pulling the meat was far easier than deboning the shoulder and cooking strips on a rotisserie, I just left it for close to 3 hours cooking away!
I don’t think I would really change anything on this cook, it all worked well together and was a treat to eat. I had two but could have kept going!
| Cook Difficulty: | 3/5 |
| Cook Duration: | Medium: 3/5 |
| Cook Equipment: | Kamado Joe Big Joe |
| Cook Method: | Low and Slow |
| Charcoal: | Resilient Woodlands Oak |
| Smoking Wood: | Treetops Oak |
| Cook temperature: | 350F |
| Cook time: | 2h45m plus a 30m rest |
| Internal temperature: | 92C |
| Notes: | No major changes. |
The Shawarma rub is available from the Angus & Oink website – £6 for 200g.
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