18/07/2026
A couple of weeks ago, my brother, Jc Lontoc (owner and president of 182 Casa Lontoc Rubs and Spices), came over to celebrate his birthday, in advance, with us. He brought an assortment of food for us to cook. Among them, was a rack of lamb shoulder and a few slices of fresh salmon.
About a week before that, I had cooked a leg of lamb—brought in from Australia by my BFF—for Father’s Day. It was perfect. So I opted to do the same with my brother’s lamb shoulder. No need to reinvent the wheel. And there’s no overload when it comes to lamb.
We slow roasted the lamb for about 6 hours with a bunch of spices in what is called a Greek Roast Lamb. You insert slivers of garlic into the lamb, rub with with salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and EVOO and, then, stick it in the oven in high heat for about 30 minutes. It should get nice and brown. After that, you take it out, turn it around, put in some stock, white wine and a bunch of spices and, then, cover the Dutch Oven with some parchment paper and two layers of aluminum foil, and let it roast in medium heat for 2.5 hours. You take it out again, after that, flip it around, add to the liquid if it reduced too much, and roast it another 2.5 hours. You then take out the cover, and leave it to roast another 30 minutes. Take it out after, and rest it for about 15 minutes before serving. It should be fork-tender by then, and very tasty.
As for the salmon—and I know the picture doesn’t give you any idea what it is—Tin did it à la Conti’s. That is to say, you slightly pan-sear the salmon in butter before laying them out on a Pyrex. Then cover the whole thing with a mix of cream cheese—a lot of it—mozzarella, garlic, mayo and a few other things. And, then, bake for about 25 minutes.
My son, Bash, who doesn’t care much for lamb (I know. Strange), super loved the salmon. Actually, since I find it malansa, aside from eating the smoked one with dill sauce, it’s the only other way I truly enjoy it. It’s so garlicky and cheesy, I think any meat would work baked this way. Hmm. Maybe I’ll try that with chicken.
I only got to the part of sticking the lamb in the oven the second time. Tin did the rest. I had to take my brother to a farm in Nasugbu, about 45 minutes away, to see if he could work out a deal of contract growing for chilis with its owner. He was able to.
But what a day. We couldn’t even do a nightcap after dinner. Worn out and full, we instead enjoyed the night’s sleep.
