Hearty Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables

Hello one and all. Wow, it is April already and daylight is getting progressively longer. Daytime temperatures have been on the warm side too, requiring us to only walk about in t-shirts or a light jumper. Had to turn on the fan for the dog today coz he was already feeling the heat after his walk.

Speaking of the dog, he’s pretty much recovered 100% and for that we are thankful. He looks and acts like he always has … scrounging about for food scraps all the time and bouncing around when he sees other dogs in the park. We haven’t heard any further news from his doctors regarding the tissue samples they removed from his lungs, so I am assuming it is all good news. The last we spoke to them was on the phone and they said tests have revealed that the lump wasn’t cancer tissue, that it most likely was inflamed due to a past infection of some sort. Such a relief! I was convinced I was losing my pooch to cancer and had already started looking at cremation urns online … as a defense mechanism I tend to embrace worst case scenarios rather than hope against hope. Such a cynic, eh? Anyway,  the dog is fine, he’s not going anywhere any time soon. We have that much at least to be thankful for this coming Easter season.

 

 

Hearty Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables

 

• 1 kg leg of lamb, trimmed and diced
• 2 stalks celery
• 150 g baby carrots
• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic
• bunch of mint leaves, chopped
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup white wine or dark ale
• 1 cup water or lamb stock
• 1 tsp rosemary

 

 

Garlic Mash

 

• 5 – 6 large mashing potatoes
• 1 tsp salt
• black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 – 2 tsp dried garlic flakes
• 100 g unsalted butter
• 150 mls cream or milk

 

 

Trim and dice up the lamb into one-inch chunks. Salt and pepper them then sprinkle over the flour. An easy way to deal with the flour would be to place it into a large bag … large enough to hold the lamb chunks. Whack everything in there and then shake the living daylights out of the bag, coating every surface of the lamb without getting flour all over yourself and the kitchen.

Heat some oil in a heavy pan or Dutch oven and brown off the lamb in batches. Every time you finish cooking a batch, transfer them to the pressure cooker.

Now chop up the celery, onions and garlic. I like to make this stew quite rustic, so I don’t really care whether or not I cut the vegetables into nice even pieces. The long cooking time will ensure all the vegetables are well and truly cooked anyway.  Chuck them all into the same pan in which you cooked the lamb and stir them around a bit. Season with a pinch of salt, pepper and rosemary.

When the onions are a little soft and translucent, transfer them all to the pressure cooker with the lamb. Now place the pressure cooker over the fire and heat everything through together. Add the wine or ale and cook off the alcohol, then add the water. Place the baby carrots over the top and place the lid on the pot. Secure it according to your manufacturers instructions. Again, if you don’t own a pressure cooker, just stick everything in  heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid and shove it in the oven for a couple of hours.

The benefits of using a pressure cooker means you can have this gorgeous lamb stew in about thirty minutes from the time you lock on the lid. Now, while that is cooking away you have time to prep the garlic mash … which is pretty standard.

– Peel and chop potatoes.

– Place in pot with cold water and salt and one bay leaf

– Boil until tender

– Drain well and return to the stove on very low heat.

– Add butter and hot milk … mash mash mash.

– Add garlic flakes and mash some more.

– Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

By now your stew should be about done. Release the steam carefully and remove the lid. The gravy should be nice and thick from all that flour that you coated the lamb with earlier. Final step will be to stir in the chopped mint leaves, and lunch is ready to serve.

This dish would be great when serving a crowd like on Easter Sunday. Pack all the family round the table and place a giant pot full of this stew, along side another big bowl of garlic mash and have yourselves a wonderful afternoon ahead. Stick around to find out what I intend on serving for dessert in the next post.

~ Enjoy! ~