Slow roasted lamb merguez, spinach, dried apricots and goat's cheese

If I had to pick a favourite sandwich, this is it. Succulently spiced lamb falling off the bone with juicy apricots and topped with oh-so-soft goat’s cheese. Cue salivating.

Makes:
6 sandwiches
Preparation time:
20 mins
Cooking time:
6½ hrs

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Ingredients

Merguez spice mix
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
½ cinnamon stick
½ tsp black peppercorns
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp rosemary, finely chopped
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp olive oil

Lamb
½ lamb shoulder (with bone), approx. 1kg
1 glass of water

And the rest
60g baby spinach
12 dried apricots, halved lengthways
60g soft goat’s cheese
12 slices of thyme sourdough

Instructions

To start off, toast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, cinnamon and peppercorns in a dry frying pan for a minute, until fragrant. Transfer them to a pestle and mortar and crush to a fine powder.

Combine with the remaining ingredients to create a thick paste – almost like wet sand.

Lightly score the meat and rub over half of the spice mix, especially into the cuts.

Pre-heat the oven to 220ºC. Put the lamb into a deep roasting tin and cook for half an hour.

Remove from the oven and rub the remaining spice mix over the lamb. Pour in the glass of water, cover the lamb with foil and place back in the oven. Lower the temperature to 120ºC and cook for a further 6 hours, until the meat is falling off the bone. Add more water to the roasting tin, if necessary.

Once cooked, take the lamb out of the oven and leave to rest for at least 30 minutes, loosely covered with foil. At this point, take the cheese out of the fridge so it can come up to room temperature and soften.

Shred the lamb with a couple of forks and layer the ingredients as shown above.

Tuck in.