Recipe: Lucy Tweed Turns to This Thai Green Curry with Lamb for Easy Winter Entertaining

When it comes to entertaining in winter, you want to choose dishes that deliver maximum reward with relatively little effort. Maybe that’s a roast, or sometimes it’s a braise. More often than not, though, it involves slow-cooked meat. And if you’re already spending that time getting it soft and tender, you want to make sure you’re packing it full of flavour, too. Thankfully, Valcom’s range of curry pastes and this recipe from Lucy Tweed can both help with that.

When the temperature dips, the cookbook author is particularly drawn to curry – for this version, she reaches for tender lamb shoulder, which stands up to the bold flavours of Thai green curry paste.

“Because of the nature of lamb shoulder being quite a rich cut, it pairs perfectly with something vibrant and tangy and fresh like a Thai curry,” she says.

The Thai green curry paste forms the backbone of the dish, bringing together aromatic herbs and spices. Valcom uses shrimp paste, a staple in Thai cuisine that’s often left out in home-cooking recipes – but an essential for authentic Thai dishes, and responsible for giving green curry that bold, rich umami flavour. Tweed has been using the brand for years. “They have a really good tang,” she says.

As with many of her recipes, it’s the small techniques make all the difference. Her first tip is to brown the lamb shoulder on the barbeque rather than the stovetop. “You get a really nice charry texture,” she says. It also helps render out some of the fat from the shoulder before you add it to the pot.

She also recommends using a cartouche: a circle of baking paper placed directly on top of the braising liquid before cooking. “It just keeps that extra moisture in,” she says.

Before adding the remaining ingredients, Tweed lightly fries the curry paste to bloom its aromatics. It already contains plenty of staple Thai ingredients like shallots, green chilli, galangal, shrimp paste, coriander seed, lemongrass and makrut lime leaves. If Tweed has either of those last two ingredients on hand, she’ll throw those in extra, too. For a final flourish, she balances the richness of the lamb with a punchy salad of cucumber, cherry tomatoes and fried shallots, dressed with extra curry paste, lime juice, fish sauce and sugar.

Served with steamed rice and plenty of lime, it’s the sort of meal Tweed imagines stretching across a winter afternoon. “This, to me, is an ideal weekend lunch with friends,” she says. “Sitting outside, sharing around, really having a lovely time.”

Lucy Tweed’s Thai green curry braised lamb shoulder and nam jim salad

Serves 4–6 Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 3.5 hours

Ingredients

1 bone-in lamb shoulder (approx. 2kg)
2 tbsp neutral oil (for the lamb and the pan)
salt, for seasoning
7 tbsp Valcom Green Curry Paste
1 x 400ml can coconut milk
250ml chicken stock
250ml water
2 lemongrass stalks, bruised (reserves a tender 3cm section for the dressing)
4 makrut lime leaves, spine removed
3cm thumb ginger, thinly sliced
1 red onion, cut into thin wedges
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
juice of 1 lime

Nam Jim
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
3cm thumb ginger, peeled and chopped
3cm piece lemongrass, finely sliced
2 long red chillies, finely chopped
2 makrut lime leaves, spine removed and very thinly sliced
2 tsp Valcom Green Curry Paste
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp palm sugar
1 tsp rice wine vinegar

Salad
2 Lebanese cucumbers, halved lengthways, sliced on an angle
1 green apple, cut into batons
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
250g cherry tomatoes, cut into chunks
3 tbsp shaved coconut, toasted
3 tbsp fried shallots
large handful Thai basil leaves
large handful mint leaves
large handful coriander leaves

To serve: steamed jasmine rice

Method

Preheat oven to 170°C. Rub the lamb shoulder with oil and season generously on all sides with salt.

Over high heat on the BBQ, brown the lamb shoulder on all sides, allowing for a little char for flavour. I like to do this for 2 reasons... It’s easier and cleaner to brown such a big piece of meat on the grill than wrangling it inside, and the aforementioned “char”. Remove and set aside.

Over medium heat in a heavy oven-proof pan (ideally with a lid, otherwise foil will do). Add the oil and then the Valcom Green Curry Paste to the pot and fry for 2 minutes until fragrant. Add the lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and ginger. Add the coconut milk, stock, water, fish sauce, brown sugar and lime juice. Stir to combine, scraping up any caramelised bits from the bottom of the pot.

Return the lamb to the pot. The liquid should come about halfway up the meat. Bring to a simmer, then cover tightly, firstly with a paper cartouche and then the lid or a double layer of foil then transfer to the oven. Braise for 3-3.5 hours until the meat is completely tender and falling from the bone.

For the nam jim, add the garlic, ginger and lemongrass to a mortar and pestle and crush well. You can just mince this by hand with a knife, but the crushing helps release extra oils and flavour into the dressing. Add the Valcom Green Curry Paste and combine well then stir in remaining ingredients until all the sugar is dissolved. Taste and adjust - it should be hot, sour, salty and just slightly sweet. The Valcom Curry paste is perfectly balanced and adds the perfect amount of body to the dressing.

In a large bowl, toss the cucumber, apple, celery, cherry tomatoes, coconut flakes and fried shallots together. Add the herbs, then spoon over enough nam jim to dress generously. Toss just before serving.

Remove the lamb from the oven and rest for 10 minutes. Pull the meat roughly from the bone directly in the pot, letting it fall into the braising liquid.

Serve the lamb and braising liquid over jasmine rice with the salad and some lime wedges.

Notes

1. The braise can be made the day before – the flavour improves overnight. Reheat gently with a splash of stock if the liquid has thickened too much.

2. Palm sugar can be swapped for brown sugar in a pinch, but the flavour is worth seeking out. Most supermarkets carry palm sugar now.

3. Don’t dress the salad until the moment you serve. The cucumber and tomatoes will weep and the herbs will wilt fast.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Valcom.