A shoulder to try on the family

Lamb chops and legs keep piling up in the freezer after a delivery, but I'm always looking for another shoulder. There's got to be one shoulder hiding in the dark recesses with all the unknown amorphous cryogenics that might pre-date the last Dansgaard-Oeschger event way back when we bought the freezer during the popular Pleistocene sale at Harvey-Norman.

The shoulder carries the most complex array of musculature. It's the crossroads of the neck, the foreleg and the best end, so it's a bugger to carve at the table, but this intricate arrangement means you get lots of hidden treasures and plenty of connective tissue that melts during the long, low-temperature cooking.

It's also the perfect size to feed four people, which we are now. The leg always yields way more and for the most part is boring. The best parts, in and around the bone, you get from the shoulder.

One of the best uses for lamb, where it shows its richness and flavour, is in a braised dish with heaps of spices and fruits from North Africa, the Middle East and the subcontinent.

It's like lamb and mutton heartland. Don't get me wrong - nothing beats a traditional family roast lamb. For excitement and complexity and sheer exoticness, head to the lands of the Arab Spring.

Moroccan is the best known of these cuisines. Colourful, slightly wild and with all those weird goats that we love to watch on YouTube, Morocco is one of the world's most interesting food bowls. So many of the fruits, spices and herbs we use daily started life here on the southern banks of the Mediterranean, where no doubt a Bedouin sat on his haunches thinking "is that edible?"

In this dish, we get to play around with just about everything. A rich tapestry of flavours based on spices build through the dish. Ras el hanout is the backbone and can contain up to 100 different spices and dried herbs.

I use Herbies but feel free to make your own. Then you have lots of fruit such as oranges, lemons and lime as well as prunes and dates. Some sweet, some sour, mixed together, you get to build this fantastic melting pot of flavour and taste. Added to this you have the olive, both as a fruit and as the ubiquitous oil.

This time of year in Canberra we are harvesting the olives. If you can nuzzle up to a grower - try it, they are all cuddly, if not a little abrasive - see if you can get unrefined cold-pressed oil. It's cloudy but so full of olivey freshness that it gives the dish a real boost. Use green olives as a back-up plan. There's also all the pulses and starches.

Here I introduce chickpeas and couscous near the end to suck up the braising liquid, but you could serve it with normal couscous, which is more like a bread than the pasta-like giant couscous I use here. Lastly, but certainly not to overshadow its effect, a Moroccan dish isn't complete without harissa, the fiery chilli paste that gives the dish a kick like a camel.

Sure, this probably looks like a lot of work, but it's really worth the effort as lamb is one of the few meats that can handle this amount of flavour and still show it own characters.

The arrangement will work with lots of interesting meats like camel, goat and an actual couscous. I reckon even chicken if you don't eat red meat. Just use chicken thighs and legs and shorten the cooking time by a half. Or if you don't eat meat … Just joking. Surely everyone eats meat.

Bryan Martin is winemaker at Ravensworth and Clonakilla, bryanmartin.com.au.

Lamb shoulder tagine with harissa and giant couscous

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ras el hanout

1 lamb shoulder, trimmed of excess fat and connective tissue

1 tsp salt

good extra-virgin olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 large orange, zest and juice

2 lemons

6 prunes

12 large green olives

1 tin peeled tomatoes

1 tbsp harissa paste (see below or store bought)

1 cup lamb or chicken stock

250g giant couscous

250g lamb or chicken stock

1 cup cooked chickpeas

1 pomegranate, seeds removed

1 cup chopped herbs: parsley, mint and coriander

Mix the spices together, use one third of these to rub over the lamb shoulder with the salt. Set the oven at 100C. In a large heavy-based fry pan, heat until smoking, add a little oil and cook the lamb shoulder. Spend a good 20 minutes doing this so that it is seared all over. Remove and wipe out any spent oil and add a little fresh olive oil, saute the onion and carrots in this along with another one third of the spices. Don't let them burn but it all should be well collapsed. Add the fruit and zest, along with the tomatoes and harissa, return the lamb shoulder to this and cover with enough lamb stock so that it is just over half covered. Think a half-submerged floating log.

Cook covered in the oven, in a prepared tagine if you have one. Should take about five to six hours, depending on how accurate your oven is and how big the lamb shoulder. Test with a skewer. When it is totally giving, remove and set aside. Heat some more olive oil in a wide frypan, cook the couscous until toasted and add extra stock. Lower the heat and cook this until it has absorbed the stock. Take the lamb out of the tagine and stir in the couscous and chickpeas with extra spice. Plonk the lamb back in the stew, cover and rest for 10 minutes to equalise the temperature. Garnish with pomegranate and herbs. Serve with spiced yoghurt and hummus made from the leftover chickpeas.

Harissa paste

12 dried red chillies, choose your heat

1 tbsp coriander seed

1 tsp cumin seed

1 tsp caraway seed

1 tsp salt

3 cloves garlic, oven-roasted and peeled

olive oil

In a heavy-based frypan, dry roast the chilli and spices separately. In a mortar and pestle, grind the chilli with the spices and salt, then squash in the garlic. Drizzle over enough olive oil to make a thick paste.