Lamb stew, brown bread, cabbage

The lamb stew was made from this lamb stew recipe in the Guardian.
I tried to make it with veal stock. Which is a stupid thing to do on several fronts: a) this is LAMB stew b) I've never made veal stock.
I roasted the veal bones, before adding them to a pan with vegetables (celery, carrot, onion) and herbs (bay, thyme).
It smelled like hooves.
I refused to add tomato paste, or to roast the vegetables first before adding to the stock pot. This was all foolish.
I let it boil, then simmered for 3 hours.
It wasn't long enough. It still tasted of hooves.

So next time I will add tomato paste, roast vegetables, and simmer for at least 8 hours.

Also the lamb cut wasn't good (Sainsbury's not Waitrose). I won't stray again for meat - its just not worth the lower quality.

I also made the brown bread. From 100% wholemeal flour. That wasn't a brilliant idea either. It was very dense. Admittedly it is tasty - but the texture is too dense. A good experiment, but several things to learn: don't use 100% wholemeal flour, let it prove twice before shaping.

Roast lamb, with rosti, greens and a red wine sauce

I roasted the lamb (mini leg joint) with garlic and rosemary. Altho' I copied a recipe that said to insert the lamb into the meat, by making small cuts. The short length of time this joint needs is not enough to caramelise or sweeten the garlic enough, so it tasted too raw for me.

The rosti I made because we had celeriac, potatoes and jerusalem artichokes ( i prefer the french name - topinambour - its slightly shorter, tho not much - than the english). I grated each of these and fried slowly in butter and olive oil.

I placed the rosti on a bed of spring greens which had just been steamed.

The sauce was a very last minute thing, and really not quite what I wanted! I put some red wine and some redcurrant jelly into the roasting pan, picked up all the meat juices, then reduced to a sauce. It was tasty - but rich - and with the slight rawness of the garlic - it all didn't quite sing.

Still - tasty enough.

Methi Gosht and bombay potatoes

Carrying on with the curry theme from yesterday (see chicken almond curry)- I wanted to start to try and get the Methi Gosht - which is our favourite curry from Curry Manjil in Belsize Park. It is greatly missed by us now in Bath. Sometimes its tempting to drive all the way up the M4.
So - its time to try and get somewhere with this lamb and fenugreek curry.
This was delicious - tho' I'd like to get some fenugreek leaves - I only could find seeds. Still - it had depth of flavour, and the sauce was good and thick. Will keep trying in variations to see how close to Curry Manjil we can get.

Lamb, pearl barley, carrot stew

Bought some cheap as chips stewing lamb. Remembered how nice pearl barley is, and decided on this stew.

I sliced and fried some onions very gently in olive oil and butter.
Coated the lamb in seasoned flour, and browned it gently in the onion pan.
Added stock (just veg bouillon - i haven't got round to the veal stock yet ;)
Added pearl barley and let cook for several hours.
On reflection adding the barley just one hour before the end would be better.
Sliced carrots, added them about an hour before the end.
All in all cooked it slowly slowly for about 3+ hours.

By this time, the meat is falling apart and everything is sweet and unctuous.

I didn't want to cloud the stew with other veg - potatoes and parsnip - so i cooked them separately. I've got a thing for steamed potatoes at the moment, so i did those and chiffonaded some spring greens. Wanted some fresher carrots than just those in the stew, so finely julienned them and steamed alongside the greens.
Also sliced up some parsnip and gently boiled for a few minutes, finished it with butter and salt.

All in all very satisifying on a cold early winter evening. Especially when we had the next post for pudding!