Preheat the oven to 350F.

Cut off any excess fat from the lamb and then pat the lamb dry with a paper towel. Place the lamb shoulder on a cutting board. Season both sides generously with salt and pepper.

To a dutch oven, add 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, sear the lamb until golden brown on all sides, about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove the lamb to a plate and set aside. Drain all but 1 tablespoon of oil from the pot.

Deglaze the dutch oven with red wine and let most of it cook off, leaving 1-2 tablespoons, scraping off any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Then, add the beef broth, pomegranate juice, rosemary sprigs, thyme sprigs, orange peel and cinnamon stick and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.

Once the liquid in the dutch oven is simmering, turn off the heat and add the seared lamb back into the middle of the dutch oven. Then, nestle the halved heads of garlic and peeled shallots around the lamb shoulder.

Cover the lamb with a piece of parchment paper and then cover the entire dutch oven with foil, place the lid on and then put into the preheated oven.

Bake for about 3-3.5 hours, basting with the pan sauce every hour, until the lamb is very tender and the meat starts to pull away easily with a fork. Keep an eye on the pan sauce levels, if needed add a little bit more beef broth. When the lamb meat starts to pull away easily, remove the lamb from the oven and turn the heat up to 425F. While the oven heats up a bit, use a ladle to skim some of the fat from the liquid in the pan to a safe vessel and discard later.

Before placing back in the oven, make sure there is still liquid in the pan, if not add another ½ cup beef broth.

Place the lamb back in the oven uncovered (even if the oven isn’t preheated yet to 425F, that's ok) for about 30 minutes, until the top of the lamb is nicely browned / crispy.

When the lamb is in the last 30 minutes of cook time, make the parsnip puree.

Add the peeled and cut parsnips to a large pot of salted water (1 tsp salt).

Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil the parsnips for 10-12 minutes or until fork tender.

Once cooked, remove from the heat and drain the water.

Add the drained parsnips to a blender or food processor with ¼ cup butter, whole milk, 1 tsp kosher salt and ground pepper. Blend the mixture until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning with ½ tsp more salt, pepper and/or 1-2 tbsp more butter. Set aside.

Once the lamb is done cooking, remove heads of garlic, cinnamon stick and orange peel from the pot before pulling the lamb into smaller pieces.

Optional: Squeeze out some of the roasted garlic cloves into the pan sauce or serve alongside the lamb. Alternatively, you could add a few to the parsnip puree.

Spread a portion of the parsnip puree on a plate and serve pieces of the lamb on top. Garnish with fresh mint leaves, pomegranate arils and chopped pistachios.